The terrible story of Don Ernesto’s daughters: they believed that having daughters meant never sleeping alone.

On the outskirts of Coatzacoalcos, where the river flowed sluggishly beneath the scorching sun of 1950, stood an hacienda that the locals viewed with suspicion.

They called it the house of souls, although its true name, engraved on yellowed documents, was San Cristóbal.

Its owner, Don Ernesto Mendoza, was a sixty-year-old man whose icy gaze seemed to penetrate the soul of anyone who dared cross his path.

That June afternoon, as the sky turned orange, Rosario López, a maid in the house for five years, watched from the kitchen window her employer welcome a young woman who had stepped off a dilapidated bus.

She was thin, with a pale face framed by black hair that fell to her waist.

She could not have been more than seventeen years old.

“She is the fourth in two years,” Rosario muttered to herself as she dried a porcelain plate with trembling hands.

The girl’s name was Consuelo.

She came from a remote village in Chiapas, where poverty fed on dreams and hopes.

Don Ernesto had promised her parents an education, food, and a better future for their daughter in exchange for her work as a companion now that loneliness weighed on him after his wife’s death.

“Welcome to your new home, my child,” Don Ernesto said with a smile that did not reach his eyes.

“Here you will be treated as part of my family.”

Consuelo nodded timidly while observing the imposing two-story house with stone walls and high windows protected by wrought-iron bars that resembled claws.

Rosario watched everything with a knot in her stomach.

She knew what it meant to be part of the family for Don Ernesto.

She had seen Isabel, Maria, and Lucia; all young women who arrived looking for fortune, all mysteriously disappearing after months spent at the hacienda.

“We will dine early tonight,” Don Ernesto ordered as he entered the kitchen, “and prepare the blue room for Miss Consuelo.”

Rosario nodded in silence.

The blue room, the same one where the other girls had slept, was located next to Don Ernesto’s bedroom and connected by a door that only he could open.

As night fell over the property, the town’s murmurs grew like the wind through the trees.

Some said the young women had fled, tired of life in that remote place.

Others, more superstitious, spoke of sacrifices and rituals under the full moon, but no one dared question Don Ernesto, whose power in the region was as great as the fear he inspired.

What no one knew was that in the estate’s basement, behind a heavy oak door that remained always closed, answers awaited in the darkness, whispering stories that would freeze the blood of the bravest.

The blue room was not exactly blue.

Its walls, once painted a soft pale blue, now showed a grayish hue, as if time had stolen their color.

A wrought-iron bed dominated the center, covered by starched white sheets that Rosario had changed that very afternoon.

In a corner, a mahogany wardrobe stood imposingly, and next to the barred window, a small desk with a chair completed the furniture.

Consuelo left her worn suitcase on the bed.

Inside were all her belongings: two dresses, underwear, a hairbrush, and a small rag doll her grandmother had given her before dying.

She stared at it for a moment before carefully tucking it under her pillow.

“Do you need anything else, miss?” Rosario asked from the doorway, her eyes fixed on the wooden floorboards that creaked beneath her feet.

“No!” Consuelo replied softly.

“I am very tired from the journey.”

Rosario nodded and, before closing the door, added in a barely audible whisper, “Do not open your door at night for any reason in the world.”

The door closed before Consuelo could ask the reason for that strange warning.

She approached the window and contemplated the nighttime landscape.

The moon illuminated the sugarcane fields that extended as far as the eye could see.

In the distance, the faint lights of the town looked like fallen stars.

During dinner, Don Ernesto had been cordial, asking about her family, her studies, her dreams.

He seemed genuinely interested in her, even though something in his gaze, the way his eyes lingered on her neck when he thought she wasn’t noticing, made her feel uneasy.

“I will show you the hacienda tomorrow,” he had told her.

“It is important that you know your new home, every corner, every secret.”

Consuelo was about to put on her nightshirt when she noticed something on the wall next to the bed’s headboard: a small hole, almost imperceptible.

She approached and, examining it, felt a chill.

It was not just any hole; it seemed intentional, as though someone wanted to observe from the other side.

With a pounding heart, she looked for something to cover it.

She found a piece of paper on the desk and taped it over the hole with a bit of toothpaste.

She had just lain down when she heard a noise coming from the wall she shared with Don Ernesto’s room.

It sounded like a sliding latch.

Then slow, heavy footsteps stopped in front of the door connecting the two bedrooms.

Consuelo held her breath.

The doorknob turned slowly, but the door did not open.

It was locked from her side, a precaution she had taken on instinct.

“Consuelo, are you awake?”

Don Ernesto’s voice sounded different, deeper, hungrier.

“I need to talk to you about your responsibilities in the house.”

She did not answer.

She feigned deep sleep while tears silently streamed down her cheeks.

After what felt like an eternity, she heard Don Ernesto walk away, cursing softly.

That night Consuelo did not sleep.

She sat on the bed, hugging her knees with her back against the wall opposite the shared door.

In the darkness, she thought she heard something else, a distant crying, as if coming from the bowels of the earth, a lament of female voices that froze her blood.

Dawn arrived with a thick fog creeping among the trees like an indecisive ghost.

Consuelo, with deep dark circles under her eyes after a sleepless night, emerged from her room as soon as the first rays of sunlight filtered through the window.

She needed air, time to think, to understand what she had gotten herself into.

The house was silent except for noises coming from the kitchen.

There she found Rosario, preparing coffee in an old pewter pot.

The middle-aged woman looked up when she heard her enter, and her eyes widened slightly noticing her haggard appearance.

“You couldn’t sleep, miss?” she asked in a low voice, as if afraid of being overheard.

Consuelo shook her head and sat on a stool next to the worn wooden table.

“Oh, there is a hole in the wall of my bedroom,” she confessed.

“And last night, Don Ernesto tried to enter.”

Rosario dropped a cup that shattered on the tiled floor.

Her hands trembled as she gathered the pieces.

“I shouldn’t talk about these things,” she murmured.

“The walls have ears in this house.”

But Consuelo, driven by fear and despair, insisted, “Please, I need to know what is happening here. What happened to the other girls? I know there were others before me.”

Rosario looked nervously toward the door before approaching Consuelo.

“Come with me to the chicken coop,” she said softly.

“I need to gather eggs for breakfast.”

Once outside, among the clucking of hens and far from prying ears, Rosario spoke with a trembling voice.

“There have been four in total,” she began.

“Isabel was the first, almost three years ago. She was 16 years old, from Oaxaca. Then María from Veracruz and Lucía, who came from a town near Mexico City. All between 16 and 18 years old.”

“What happened to them?” Consuelo asked, though a part of her feared the answer.

“They disappeared.”

Rosario picked up an egg and placed it carefully in her basket.

“Don Ernesto said they ran away, that they were ungrateful after everything he had done for them, but…” she paused as if the words refused to come out of her throat.

“And you?” Consuelo insisted.

“I heard them scream,” Rosario confessed with tear-filled eyes.

“One night, six months ago, I heard Lucía scream as if they were tearing her soul out. It came from the basement. Don Ernesto told me the next day that she had left during the night, but her things were still in the blue room and there was blood on the stairs leading to the basement.”

“I cleaned everything without asking questions. I have five children to feed in the village. I cannot lose this job.”

Consuelo felt the world spinning around her.

She wanted to run, to escape from that cursed place.

But where would she go?

She was miles from the nearest town, without a penny and knowing no one.

“There is more,” Rosario continued, lowering her voice even further.

“Don Ernesto has a room in the basement that is always locked. No one can enter. Except him. Sometimes, on full moon nights, I saw him go down with strange objects: herbs, black candles, a silver knife with inscriptions I couldn’t understand.”

“Do you think… that he killed them?” Consuelo asked, feeling nauseous.

Rosario made the sign of the cross.

“I don’t know, miss, but there is something else you must know. The next full moon is in three days.”

At that moment, Don Ernesto’s voice thundered from the house, calling Rosario.

The woman startled, almost dropping the basket of eggs.

“Be careful,” she whispered hastily to Consuelo, “and find a way out of here before the full moon.”

After a tense breakfast during which Don Ernesto acted as if nothing had happened the previous night, Consuelo was ordered to tidy up the hacienda’s library.

It was a large room with floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with ancient books; the scent of old paper and leather permeated the air.

“My late wife loved books,” Don Ernesto observed as he showed her around.

“I want you to organize them by subject and author. Take your time. There is much work to be done.”

Consuelo nodded in silence, grateful for a task that would keep her busy and away.

Don Ernesto watched her for an extra moment with that unsettling gaze that seemed to undress her before leaving for town on business.

Once alone, Consuelo began examining the books.

Most were classic novels, agricultural treatises, and some volumes on Mexican history.

However, in a secluded corner, she found a collection of texts that froze her blood: tomes on Aztec rituals, human sacrifices, and black magic.

Some were in languages she did not recognize, with disturbing illustrations of ceremonies where priests extracted the hearts of still-living victims.

While reorganizing those disconcerting volumes, one of them fell to the floor, revealing something hidden behind the row of books: a small notebook with a red leather cover.

She picked it up with trembling hands and saw that the initials L.M. were stamped on the cover.

Lucía Martínez, the last girl before her.

With her heart pounding wildly, Consuelo opened the diary and began to read.

“October 20, 1949. Today I arrived at the San Cristóbal hacienda. Don Ernesto seems kind, although there is something in his eyes that troubles me. The house is beautiful, but gloomy. My room is blue and overlooks the sugarcane field. I miss my family, but I know that here I will have opportunities I never would have had in my village.”

Consuelo flipped through the pages quickly, reading random passages.

“November 15. I found a hole in the wall next to my bed. I think someone is watching me while I sleep. I asked Rosario, but she pretended to know nothing.”

“December 3. Last night, Don Ernesto tried to enter my room. He said he was cold and wanted company. I pretended to sleep. I don’t like the way he looks at me during meals.”

“December 20. Today I discovered something horrible. I was cleaning Don Ernesto’s study when I found photographs of other girls in a drawer. Isabel and María, according to the names written on the back, are terrified in the photos, tied to a sort of stone altar. I must escape from here.”

The last entry, dated January 10, 1950, was written with a trembling hand.

“He found out I know too much. Today he locked me in my room. He says tomorrow’s full moon is special, that it was written I would be the third. He talks about a ritual to obtain eternal youth from virgin blood and pure hearts. I hid this diary hoping someone will find it. If you are reading this, please run away. It is not what it seems.”

“In the basement, behind the large mezcal barrel, there is a secret door leading to a tunnel. It was an escape route during the revolution. It is my only hope now, even though I fear it is too late for me. The full moon approaches and I hear his footsteps in the hallway.”

The diary ended abruptly.

Consuelo felt a chill run down her spine.

Now everything made sense: the disappearances, the nighttime noises, Don Ernesto’s obsession with young women of a certain age.

She slipped the diary among her clothes and continued organizing the library, trying to keep calm.

Her mind raced, devising a plan.

If what Lucía had written was true, she had a chance to escape.

But first she had to confirm the existence of the tunnel.

And, more importantly, she had to reach the basement without arousing suspicion.

As she put the books back on the shelves, she heard the sound of a car approaching along the dirt road.

Don Ernesto was returning from town and, with him, Consuelo’s time was beginning to run out.

That night, during dinner, Consuelo looked at Don Ernesto with new eyes.

She no longer saw a lonely old man, but a calculating predator, a monster disguised as a benefactor.

Every smile, every gentle gesture hid macabre intentions that she now knew perfectly.

“Do you like the mole, Consuelo?” he asked, wiping his mouth with a linen napkin.

“It is a special recipe by Rosario.”

“It is delicious, sir,” she replied, forcing a smile as she pushed the food around her plate.

She hadn’t touched it, fearing it was drugged to facilitate his plans.

“Tomorrow is a special day,” Don Ernesto continued, pouring himself more wine.

His eyes shone with an unsettling enthusiasm.

“There is a full moon. You know, according to ancient traditions, July’s full moon is particularly powerful. The Aztecs believed it was the time when the veil between worlds became thinner.”

Consuelo felt her stomach contract.

According to Rosario, the full moon was in three days, but Don Ernesto had just confirmed it would be tomorrow.

She had less time than she thought.

“How interesting,” she murmured.

“I would love to learn more about those traditions.”

Don Ernesto’s eyes lit up.

“Honestly, most young people your age do not appreciate ancestral knowledge. I have some books I could show you tomorrow.”

“I would like that very much,” she lied.

“I was also wondering something. I heard this estate has a cellar. I would love to see the whole house, if it’s not too much trouble.”

Don Ernesto’s smile faltered for a moment.

“The cellar is just a place to store wine and supplies. Nothing interesting for a young lady. Besides, it is damp and dirty. It is no place for you.”

Consuelo nodded, feigning disappointment.

Her attempt to access the cellar had been too obvious.

She would need another approach.

After dinner, as Don Ernesto retired to his study to handle important business, Consuelo helped Rosario clear the table and wash the dishes.

When they were alone, she showed her the diary.

“I found it in the library,” she whispered.

“It belonged to Lucía. It talks about an escape tunnel in the basement, behind a mezcal barrel.”

Rosario turned pale.

“You shouldn’t have that thing, miss. If Don Ernesto finds out…”

“Is the tunnel story true?” Consuelo insisted.

Rosario looked nervously toward the door before answering.

“Yes. The old owners built it during the revolution. It leads to an exit in the sugarcane field about 500 meters from the house.”

“I have to find it tonight,” Consuelo declared.

“The full moon is tomorrow, not in three days.”

“Tomorrow?” Rosario dropped a plate that shattered on the floor.

“But the almanac says Friday.”

“Don Ernesto just confirmed it,” Consuelo replied.

“I have no time to lose.”

Rosario remained silent for a moment, as if fighting an inner battle.

Finally, she pulled a small rusty key from her apron.

“This opens the cellar door,” she said, handing it to Consuelo.

“Wait until midnight, when Don Ernesto is sleeping. I will put a few drops of laudanum in his evening cognac to make sure he sleeps soundly.”

“Thank you.”

Consuelo squeezed the woman’s hand.

“Come with me. We can escape together.”

Rosario shook her head.

“I can’t. My children depend on this job. Besides, someone must stay to make sure Don Ernesto doesn’t wake up early.”

At midnight, just as they had planned, Consuelo slipped quietly out of her room.

In her bag, she had put Lucía’s diary, her rag doll, a kitchen knife she had taken during dinner, and a small packet of bread and cheese that Rosario had prepared for her.

The house was wrapped in a dead silence as Consuelo descended the stairs, carefully avoiding the steps that creaked.

The cellar door was hidden behind a wardrobe in the pantry, just as Rosario had indicated.

The key turned with a metallic screech that seemed to echo through the entire house, but no one moved.

As she descended the narrow stone stairs, the smell of dampness and something darker, something metallic, assaulted her nostrils.

The cellar was illuminated only by moonlight filtering through small ground-level windows.

Consuelo lit a candle she had brought with her and began exploring the space.

There were shelves with wine bottles, sacks of grain, and crates of dried vegetables.

In a corner, just as Lucía had described, stood an enormous mezcal barrel.

Consuelo approached and pushed with all her might.

The barrel moved heavily, revealing a small wooden door hidden behind it.

Her heart pounded as she tried to open it.

It was locked, but the wood was rotted from moisture.

With the knife and a bit of effort, she managed to force the lock.

She was about to enter the tunnel when a noise stopped her abruptly: footsteps descending the basement stairs.

Then Don Ernesto’s voice, cold and calm.

“Did you think it would be this easy, Consuelo? No one has managed it before you. No one ever will.”

Consuelo turned slowly.

In the basement’s dim light, Don Ernesto’s figure looked larger, more threatening.

He held an oil lamp in one hand and something metallic gleamed in the other: a ceremonial knife with ancient inscriptions.

“How?” she stammered, backing away until her back touched the damp wall next to the tunnel door.

“How did I know you would try to escape?”

Don Ernesto smiled.

A smile devoid of humanity.

“They always try. And Rosario, poor, predictable Rosario, who always thinks she can help them. But you see, I replaced her laudanum with colored water years ago, a necessary precaution.”

He raised the lamp to better illuminate Consuelo’s face, studying it as a scientist would study a particularly interesting specimen.

“You found Lucía’s diary, I suppose. It was negligence on my part not to search for it better, but it doesn’t matter now.”

Consuelo clutched the kitchen knife in her hand, hidden among the folds of her dress.

She would not surrender without a fight.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked, trying to buy time while looking for a way out.

Don Ernesto sighed as if annoyed by having to explain something obvious.

“Time, Consuelo, is everyone’s enemy. It wrinkles us, bends us, breaks us, and ultimately kills us. Unless,” he made a dramatic pause, “unless one knows the secrets to stop it.”

The Aztecs knew it.

Their priests discovered that the blood of pure young virgins, shed during specific rituals under the full moon, could transfer their youth to anyone who drank it.

Consuelo felt nauseous.

“You are crazy. These are myths, superstitions.”

“In truth,” Don Ernesto approached, forcing her to look at his face.

“I am 78 years old. How old would you say I am?”

She looked at him horrified.

It was true that he looked much younger than he claimed, but she had attributed it to good genetics or outdoor work.

“I started this journey 30 years ago,” he continued.

“Every full moon of July, a young virgin gives me her heart.”

He laughed literally at his own macabre joke.

“Every sacrifice grants me another year of youth, but lately the effect is weakening. I need something more powerful: four sacrifices in four consecutive full moons. You will be the fourth and last, the culmination of the ritual.”

Don Ernesto took another step toward her, blocking any escape route toward the stairs.

“Come with me,” he said, extending his free hand.

“I will show you something interesting before your time comes.”

Consuelo knew she had no choice.

If she tried to escape through the tunnel, he would catch her before she could go far.

Her only hope was to keep buying time, wait for an opportunity.

She followed Don Ernesto through the basement to a metal door she had never seen before.

He took a key from his pocket and opened it, revealing a room straight out of a nightmare.

In the center was a stone slab engraved with ancient symbols, stained with a dark brown color that could only be dry blood.

Around the slab stood black candles in silver candelabras.

The walls were covered with shelves containing jars of various colored liquids and objects Consuelo did not want to examine too closely.

But the most unsettling thing was the three figures seated on chairs against the back wall.

Three young women with wide-open, yet empty eyes, motionless, like life-sized dolls.

“Let me introduce you to your predecessors,” Don Ernesto said, pointing to the figures.

“Isabel, María, and Lucía are preserved by means well known to the ancients. Their hearts nourish my youth, but their bodies serve to remind what time would have done to them if they hadn’t surrendered their youth to me.”

Consuelo could not stifle a moan of horror.

The young women looked mummified, skin taut over bones, but their eyes seemed alive, locked in an expression of eternal terror.

“Tomorrow night you will join them,” Don Ernesto continued, stroking the ceremonial knife.

“Whether it is quick or not depends on how cooperative you are.”

At that moment, a noise at the top of the basement stairs caught his attention.

Don Ernesto frowned.

“It seems we have company,” he muttered.

“Wait here. Don’t try anything, foolish girl. There is no way out of this room except through this door.”

He closed the door as he left, but Consuelo heard with relief that he did not turn the key.

She was locked inside, yes, but not bolted.

A small window of opportunity had opened.

As soon as Don Ernesto’s footsteps were far enough away, Consuelo began searching desperately around the ritual room, looking for another exit or something she could use as a weapon.

The kitchen knife she had taken seemed insignificant compared to the arsenal of ceremonial tools Don Ernesto possessed.

She approached the three mummified figures cautiously.

Up close, they looked even more unsettling.

Their long black hair contrasted sharply with the parchment-like skin of their faces.

They wore identical white nightshirts, now yellowed by time.

Their hands rested in their laps, stiff like claws.

“I’m sorry,” Consuelo whispered, feeling tears stream down her cheeks.

“I am so sorry.”

That was when she noticed something strange.

One of the figures, the one Don Ernesto had identified as Lucía, had something clenched in her fist.

Something that gleamed faintly in the candlelight.

With trembling hands, Consuelo tried to pry open the rigid fingers.

It required more strength than she expected, but finally, she managed to extract the object: a small silver key.

“Thank you,” she muttered, pocketing it, uncertain of its purpose, but grateful for anything that could help her.

She examined the shelves, avoiding looking too closely at the contents of the jars.

On one of the lower shelves, she found several old books with worn leather covers.

One of them had a Spanish title: Rituals of Blood and Eternal Youth.

She opened it and flipped through it quickly, looking for anything, anything at all, to use against Don Ernesto.

Most pages contained disturbing drawings and texts in Nahuatl, but toward the end, she found a passage underlined in red.

“The ritual must be completed before midnight of the full moon. If the blood is not shed at the precise moment, the cycle breaks and all the years gained will be lost at once. The practitioner will age rapidly to their true age, suffering the punishment of the gods for…”

Her fallibility.

Consuelo treasured this information.

If she could delay the ritual past midnight, perhaps Don Ernesto would lose his power.

It was a faint hope, but the only one she had.

She heard voices coming from the main cellar.

One was Don Ernesto’s, clearly angry.

The other was Rosario’s; it was impossible to understand what they were saying, but the tone of the discussion was intense.

She approached the door silently and opened it just enough to see without being seen.

Don Ernesto had his back to her, facing Rosario, who held a crucifix in front of her as if it could protect her.

“I know what you did!” the maid shouted.

“I found the bones, Don Ernesto, in the sugarcane field.”

“You are cursed, foolish woman,” he replied with disdain.

“You have served this house well for years. Do not ruin it now with baseless accusations.”

“I warned the people,” Rosario continued.

“They are on their way. Father Domingo is leading them. They know about the missing girls.”

Don Ernesto’s face transformed into a mask of fury.

“Stupid!” he roared, lunging at her with the ceremonial knife.

Consuelo had no time to think; she pushed the door open and ran toward them, brandishing her small kitchen knife.

“Rosario, watch out!” she shouted.

It all happened in an instant.

Don Ernesto turned, surprised by Consuelo’s voice.

Rosario took advantage of the moment to push him with all her might.

The man lost his balance and fell backward, hitting his head on the corner of a barrel.

He lay motionless on the floor, a trickle of blood oozing from his nose.

“Is he dead?” Consuelo asked, trembling.

Rosario knelt beside him and checked his pulse.

“Only unconscious, but we don’t have much time. We must leave before he wakes up.”

“Wait.”

Consuelo remembered the silver key.

“I found it in the hand of one of the girls. It must open something important.”

Rosario examined the key.

“It is similar to the one he uses for his office. Perhaps he keeps documents there that prove his crimes.”

“Let’s go look for it,” Consuelo decided.

“We need proof for when the villagers arrive.”

They hurried up the stairs to Don Ernesto’s office on the second floor.

The silver key fit perfectly into the lock of a mahogany desk.

Inside, they found an accounting book and, beneath it, a thick manila envelope.

Opening it, they found fake identification documents, cash, and letters revealing Don Ernesto’s true identity: Manuel Cárdenas, a doctor from Mexico City who had fled 40 years earlier after being accused of illegal experiments on patients at the psychiatric hospital where he worked.

“I always knew he was hiding something,” Rosario murmured, “but I never imagined he was this monstrous.”

A noise downstairs made her start: heavy, irregular steps were climbing the main staircase.

“He’s awake!” Consuelo whispered, terrified, “and he’s coming to get us.”

The footsteps approached slowly, as if Don Ernesto, or rather Manuel Cárdenas, was injured but determined to reach them.

Consuelo and Rosario exchanged panicked glances.

They were trapped in the study with no exit other than the door leading to the hallway.

“The balcony,” Rosario whispered, pointing to the glass doors leading to a small balcony overlooking the back garden.

“We can jump; it’s not very high.”

Without wasting a moment, Consuelo tucked the incriminating documents into her bag and followed Rosario toward the balcony.

Outside, the full moon illuminated the landscape with a silver light that tinged everything an eerie white.

It was a clear night, not a single cloud obscuring the perfect disc.

“I’ll go first,” Rosario said, climbing over the wrought-iron railing.

At that exact moment, the office door burst open.

Don Ernesto appeared on the threshold with his face stained with blood flowing from the wound on his temple.

His bloodshot eyes shone with an inhuman fury.

In his right hand, he held the ceremonial knife.

“You’re going nowhere,” he roared, advancing toward them with uncertain steps.

“Jump!” Consuelo shouted to Rosario as she stepped between the maid and Don Ernesto, holding her small kitchen knife defensively.

Rosario hesitated for a second, but seeing the determination on Consuelo’s face, she jumped.

There was a dull thud and a groan of pain, but then the woman’s voice came from below: “I’m fine, jump too!”

Don Ernesto lunged at Consuelo, who managed to dodge him by a hair’s breadth, taking advantage of his imbalance.

The man stumbled and crashed against the desk, knocking over an oil lamp that shattered, scattering its flammable contents onto the carpet.

Within seconds, flames began to devour the paper and dry wood.

The fire spread with terrifying speed, blocking the office door.

Consuelo ran toward the balcony, but Don Ernesto, in a final desperate effort, grabbed her by the ankle.

“If I die, you come with me,” he snarled, pulling her toward him with superhuman strength.

Consuelo fell to the floor, hitting her head against the railing.

Dizzied, she watched Don Ernesto crawl toward her, the ceremonial knife reflecting the growing flames around him.

“I cannot die now,” he said in a voice that sounded less and less human.

“I need your heart. I need your youth.”

That was when Consuelo noticed something strange.

Don Ernesto’s face was changing before their eyes.

His skin, once smooth for a man of his supposed age, was beginning to wrinkle rapidly.

Age spots appeared on his hands.

His black hair, with a few gray strands, turned completely white within seconds.

“No!” he screamed when he realized what was happening.

He pulled out a pocket watch and looked at it in terror.

“Midnight. It cannot be midnight.”

Consuelo remembered the passage from the book.

If the ritual was not completed before midnight of the full moon, all the years gained would be lost.

Don Ernesto was aging before her eyes, rapidly reaching his true age of 78.

With a cry of rage and despair, Don Ernesto lunged at her one last time, knife aimed at her heart.

Consuelo rolled aside at the last moment.

The knife embedded itself in the wooden floor, and when Don Ernesto tried to pull it out, his bones, now fragile from sudden old age, clicked with an audible crunch.

The man fell to his knees, transformed into a decrepit old man in minutes.

The flames were dangerously close to both of them.

“Help me,” he pleaded, extending a wrinkled hand toward Consuelo.

“Please, don’t let me die like this.”

For a moment, Consuelo hesitated, but then she remembered Isabel, María, and Lucía, their bodies preserved as macabre trophies, their lives stolen to nourish that monster’s vanity.

“May God have mercy on your soul,” she said before jumping off the balcony.

She landed on a bush that cushioned the fall.

Rosario helped her up and together they ran toward the main road, moving away from the estate now engulfed in flames.

Halfway there, they met a group of villagers led by an elderly priest who must have been Father Domingo.

They carried torches and farm tools as improvised weapons.

“The house is on fire!” Rosario shouted.

“Don Ernesto is still inside.”

Some men ran toward the estate to try to control the fire, but it was too late.

The flames had consumed much of the second floor and were spreading rapidly.

Consuelo, exhausted and battered, collapsed onto the dirt road.

She looked up at the sky, where the full moon shone impassively above the tragedy.

For a moment, it seemed to have a reddish tint, as if reflecting the fire devouring the estate.

Or the blood of Don Ernesto’s victims.

“It’s over,” she whispered, feeling an enormous weight lift from her shoulders.

It was finally over.

Morning arrived with a cloudy sky that seemed to weep for the horrors of the previous night.

The imposing San Cristóbal hacienda had been reduced to smoking ruins and blackened walls standing like carbonized skeletons against the gray horizon.

Consuelo, after spending the night at Father Domingo’s house with Rosario, returned accompanied by a group of villagers and two rural policemen summoned from Coatzacoalcos.

Her face showed the marks of smoke and a few cuts, but an unwavering determination shone in her eyes.

“They say they haven’t found his body,” remarked one of the policemen as they walked among the charred remains of what had been the main salon.

“It’s strange. The fire couldn’t consume him completely. Maybe he managed to escape,” suggested the other officer, skeptical of the whole story Consuelo and Rosario had told.

“No,” Consuelo replied firmly.

“I saw him age in seconds. His bones became fragile, like glass. He didn’t have the strength to escape.”

The older officer looked at her with a mix of pity and doubt.

It was clear he believed the trauma had affected her perception of events.

“Look,” Rosario interrupted, pointing to a section of the basement floor that had collapsed.

It was her special room.

Carefully, the men removed the rubble and descended into the basement.

The fire had not reached that level with such force, protected by the thick stone walls.

The ritual room was practically intact, though filled with dirty water from efforts to put out the fire.

The officers stood petrified by what they found.

The three mummified figures were still seated against the wall, their empty eyes fixed eternally into nothingness.

The stone altar in the center, the ritual instruments, the jars with unspeakable contents.

Everything was there, exactly as Consuelo had described.

“Good God,” the older officer murmured, making the sign of the cross.

It was true.

Everything was true.

In a corner of the room, they found a small iron box that had resisted the heat and water.

Inside were more documents, detailed records of the young women Don Ernesto, or Manuel Cárdenas, had kidnapped over 30 years.

Not just Isabel, María, and Lucía, but dozens of others, all with photographs, personal information, and macabre notes on their contributions to the ritual.

“It’s monstrous,” said one of the villagers, unable to look at the documents any longer.

Consuelo picked up one of the papers with trembling hands.

It was a list of ingredients for the ritual along with precise instructions and detailed drawings.

At the bottom of the page, a handwritten note.

“The ritual works, but I need more and more each time. Youth fades faster, like sand through my fingers. It is the price for defying nature. Perhaps the ancient gods are angry with me for stealing their secret. It doesn’t matter. I will find a way to make it permanent, even if I have to sacrifice 100 virgins.”

“Did you really believe all this?” asked one of the policemen.

“Did he really think he would obtain eternal youth through these rituals?”

“What I believed doesn’t matter,” Consuelo replied.

“What matters is that these young women died because of his madness and that now they can rest in peace.”

While the police gathered evidence and the villagers prepared a vehicle to take the mummified bodies to the local cemetery, Consuelo stepped aside, needing a moment alone.

She walked toward what remained of the back garden and sat on a miraculously intact stone bench.

That was when she saw something among the charred bushes, a small object gleaming in the dim light filtering through the clouds.

She approached and picked it up.

It was Don Ernesto’s pocket watch, the same one he had consulted in horror when he realized midnight had arrived.

She opened it and saw that it had stopped exactly at 12, but there was something else engraved inside the lid, a message in tiny characters: “True immortality lies in being remembered. Fear is my legacy.”

A chill ran down Consuelo’s spine.

She looked toward the smoking ruins of the hacienda and felt a lingering sense of unease.

They had not found Don Ernesto’s body.

It was possible he had somehow managed to escape.

At that moment, Rosario approached, interrupting her thoughts.

“They found an exit from the tunnel,” she said, panting from running.

“It’s about 500 meters from here, just like Lucía’s diary said, but something is strange. It looks like someone used it recently. There are footprints in the mud leading away toward the sugarcane field.”

Consuelo looked at the watch once more before slipping it into her pocket.

Perhaps they would never know with certainty the ultimate fate of Manuel Cárdenas, the man who called himself Don Ernesto.

Perhaps he died in the fire, his body reduced to ashes.

Or perhaps, in a final act of superhuman will, he managed to crawl to the tunnel and escape, only to die somewhere, solitary in the sugarcane field, consumed by his true age.

What they knew was that his reign of terror was over.

The young women whose lives he stole would be buried with dignity.

Their families would finally have answers and comfort.

Consuelo would have to learn to live with the memories of that full moon night when she confronted a human monster and survived to tell the tale.

One year after the fire at the San Cristóbal hacienda, Consuelo returned to Coatzacoalcos.

She wore a simple blue dress and her hair was tied in a braid.

She looked older than her years, as though the experience had accelerated her maturation.

The bus dropped her off in the town’s main square, which had changed little since her last visit.

The same faded-color houses, the same colonial church with its bell tower marking the hours, the same old men playing dominoes in the shade of the trees.

Rosario was waiting for her at the entrance of her small house on the outskirts of the town.

They hugged in silence, communicating more than words could express.

“How are your children?” Consuelo asked as they entered the modest dwelling.

“They grow up too fast,” Rosario smiled, pouring coffee into two terracotta cups.

“Antonio is already 14 and talks about going to town to look for work. He doesn’t want to be a farmer like his father.”

Father.

Consuelo nodded, remembering that Rosario’s husband had died years before, leaving her alone with five children.

Now she worked washing clothes for wealthy families in town.

Hard work, but at least it allowed her to stay close to her children.

“And you,” Rosario asked, “you look well. How are things in Mexico City?”

“Good,” Consuelo replied.

“I work as an assistant in a library and study at night. It’s not easy, but…” she paused, searching for the right words.

“I feel alive, Rosario. After what we’ve been through, I appreciate every day as a gift.”

They drank their coffee chatting about everyday things, initially avoiding the subject that had brought them back together.

Eventually, Rosario pulled a folded newspaper from a drawer.

“It arrived three days ago,” she said, handing it to Consuelo.

“That’s why I asked you to come.”

Consuelo unfolded the newspaper.

It was El Universal, one of the most important national newspapers.

In a corner of the third page, a small article caught her attention: “Macabre discovery in Veracruz. Human remains discovered in a mangrove swamp.”

“Fishermen from the city of Alvarado found the remains of what appeared to be an elderly man in an advanced state of decomposition yesterday. According to police sources, the body was partially buried in mangrove mud and showed signs of having been there for about a year. Among the objects found with the body were a knife with ancient inscriptions and a ring with the emblem of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Faculty of Medicine, class of 1910.”

Consuelo laid the newspaper on the table, her hand trembling slightly.

“You think it’s him, don’t you?” Rosario asked.

She nodded.

“Father Domingo spoke with the Alvarado police. The description of the knife matches the one he used in his rituals, and the ring would confirm his true identity as Manuel Cárdenas, the doctor who fled Mexico City.”

“So he managed to get out of the fire,” she murmured softly, feeling a chill run down her spine.

“He used the tunnel and reached the mangrove, but didn’t go any further,” Rosario added.

“His body probably couldn’t take the strain, or perhaps, as you said, he aged suddenly and died alone, far from everything.”

Consuelo remained silent, processing the information.

During the past year, a part of her had feared that Don Ernesto had somehow survived, that he was somewhere plotting his revenge.

Now, finally, she could close that chapter of her life.

“There is more,” Rosario said, getting up to look for something in a small trunk.

“After the fire, when they removed the rubble to rebuild part of the estate, they found this in what remained of the basement.”

She handed her a black leather notebook, its pages yellowed yet still legible.

Consuelo opened it carefully.

It was a diary written in Don Ernesto’s neat handwriting.

“It started in 1920,” Rosario explained, “when he was still a respected doctor in the capital. Father Domingo read it all. He says it documents his descent into madness and obsession.”

Consuelo flipped through the pages, stopping occasionally to read fragments.

“June 10, 1920. Today I turned 48. Time slips through my fingers. I see new gray hairs every morning. Is this all life has to offer? To be born, grow, wither, and die.”

“September 3, 1921. In the university library, I found a fascinating manuscript on Aztec rituals to prolong life. Most people would dismiss it as superstition, but I see scientific potential in those ancestral practices.”

The entries continued to narrate how his initial experiments with animals gave way to trials with patients in the psychiatric hospital where he worked.

How he was discovered and had to flee, adopting a new identity.

How he established the San Cristóbal estate as his operational base.

Toward the end of the diary, the entries became increasingly erratic, mixing Spanish with phrases in Nahuatl, including drawings of strange symbols and calculations on lunar cycles.

The final entry, dated the day of the fire, read simply: “Tonight I will complete the cycle, the fourth virgin, under the fourth full moon, eternal youth. Finally, if I fail, let someone else continue my work. The secret is in the blood. It has always been in the blood.”

Consuelo closed the diary, feeling a mix of revulsion and sorrow.

Manuel Cárdenas had been a brilliant man who had allowed his fears and obsessions to transform him into a monster.

“What will you do with this?” she asked Rosario.

“Father Domingo suggests burning it,” she replied.

“He says it contains knowledge no one should possess, but he wanted you to see it first. You, more than anyone, have the right to decide.”

Consuelo stared at the diary, thinking of all the lives lost because of the twisted ideas it contained.

She thought of Isabel, María, and Lucía, whose bodies had finally been laid to rest in the local cemetery with crosses bearing their names so they would never be forgotten.

“Burn it,” she said finally.

“लेकिन let’s keep the pages documenting his crimes. Those girls’ families deserve to know the truth.”

That night, in the courtyard of Rosario’s house, they burned the diary page by page, keeping only those that would bring some peace to the victims’ families.

As the flames devoured the paper, Consuelo felt a weight lift from her shoulders.

“Will you ever return?” Rosario asked as they watched the last embers die.

Consuelo contemplated the stars shining in the night sky.

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly.

“There are too many memories here, but there are also people like you who remind me that goodness exists even in the darkest places.”

They remained silent, watching as the diary’s ashes rose into the night air, carrying away the horrors of the past.

Manuel Cárdenas, the man who called himself Don Ernesto, had sought immortality through the suffering of others.

In the end, all he had achieved was ensuring his name was remembered with fear and scorn.

Instead, she had found something more precious: the strength to face darkness and survive, to rebuild her life and help others heal.

Perhaps that was true immortality: living in such a way that one’s presence in the world left a legacy of light, not shadows.

When the moon rose in the sky, it was not red like that fateful night, but silver and serene, illuminating a path toward a future that, despite everything, promised hope.