Receive instructions to continue the game

The air inside the library was cool, still, and smelled of old paper and waxed wood. A dense silence, broken only by the distant ticking of a wall clock and the muffled echo of her own heels on the marble floor, enveloped Jessica like a shroud. The black silk scarf brushed against her skin with every shallow breath—a fragile, expensive reminder of what little dignity she had left.

The lobby was deserted. At the far end, behind a high, polished oak counter, a middle-aged woman in glasses and a beige sweater was absorbed in typing on a computer. The librarian. Jessica felt a fresh spike of panic. She would have to speak to her. She would have to approach her, her body nearly naked, painted and decorated, and ask for a book on “forbidden delights.”

God, please, let there be no one else, she thought, scanning the vast main hall through the wooden arches. Infinite bookshelves vanished into the shadows. Not a single reader was in sight. On Saturday afternoons, indeed, the place was a tomb of knowledge. She Grit her teeth. There was ****. Every passing minute was a risk. She moved toward the counter, trying to walk with an impossible normalcy. The sound of her heels made the librarian look up.

The woman blinked once, then twice. Her eyes, magnified by her lenses, traveled over Jessica from top to bottom with an agonizing slowness. They lingered on the black scarf, then on the barely visible chain at her cleavage, the silver paint on her belly, the fishnets, and the impossible heels. Her expression was not one of scandal, but of profound, stunned confusion—as if she were seeing a ghost from a surrealist art book brought to life.

Jessica stopped in front of the counter, gripping the wooden edge with gloved hands. “E-excuse me,” she managed to stammer, her voice a husky whisper. “I need… a book. The Garden of Forbidden Delights. Author anonymous. Could you tell me where it is, please?”

It took the librarian a few seconds to process the words, as if the language itself were foreign to her in this context. Finally, she blinked again and looked down at her screen, her fingers typing clumsily.

“O-occult philosophy,” she murmured, more to herself than to Jessica. “East wing. Third floor. Section O-300. At the far end, on the right.” She looked up again, and this time her gaze was direct, almost clinical. “Is… everything alright, young lady?”

The question, laden with genuine perplexity and a hint of professional concern, nearly broke Jessica. No, she wanted to scream. Nothing is alright. Help me. But she only nodded, pressing her crimson lips together beneath the mask.

“Yes. Thank you,” she murmured, turning away before the woman could ask another question.

The walk toward the stairs leading to the upper floors was a procession under an invisible gaze she felt on the back of her neck. She climbed the steps, the sound of her heels ringing out like hammer blows in the sacred stillness of the place. Every bookshelf she passed was a silent, blind witness.

The third floor was even quieter, lit by green desk lamps that created pools of light in a sea of shadows. She followed the directions, her heart pounding hard against the black silk. In section O-300, among dusty volumes on alchemy and symbolism, she found it.

The Garden of Forbidden Delights. The book was thinner than she expected, bound in dark brown leather with no title on the spine. She pulled it out carefully. Opening it, she saw the pages were blank. Empty. Only the inner cover had an inscription in elaborate calligraphy: “True delight resides in the surrender of the will.”

A shiver ran down her spine. It was another part of the game, of course. An empty symbol, like everything else.

She leaned against the shelf, the cold wood against her bare back. She took her phone. With a trembling hand, she held it in front of her, framing her body from mid-thigh up. In the photo, the black scarf covered her chest, the book was held against her silver belly, and her masked face showed eyes bright with panic. The mesh of the stockings and the garters with chains completed the image of a perverse scholar of her own degradation.

She sent the photo. The reply arrived in seconds, before she could even lower her arm.

«Good. The pursuit of knowledge leads to revelation. Now, head to the payphone on the corner of Cervantes Street, one block south of the library. Wait for a call. Answer it. Say only: ‘I am ready.’ Then wait for further instructions.»

A payphone. Jessica hadn’t seen one in years. But she obeyed. She returned the empty book to its place, as if leaving some order in the chaos might help her, and headed back down the stairs.

As she passed the counter, the librarian looked up again. This time, her gaze was more searching, as if she were trying to solve a riddle. Jessica lowered her head and stepped out into the street, where the afternoon light was beginning to turn the buildings gold.

The block to the south was quiet and residential. And there, on the corner, next to a rusty green lamppost, was the phone booth. It was one of those old ones, glass and metal, with a folding door that no longer closed properly. It looked like a relic from another era, perfect for this anachronistic and sinister game.

Jessica approached, feeling how the exposure to the open air—even with the scarf—made her feel ten times more **** than she had among the silent bookshelves. She stepped into the booth. The space was narrow, smelling of urine and dust. The phone, black and heavy, hung from the hook.

She leaned against the dirty glass wall, hugging herself. The scarf brushed her chin. I am ready, she would have to say. Ready for what? The question echoed in her mind. Ready for more humiliation? For more tests? To finally meet the Observer? Or for something worse—something for which all of this (the torn dress, the woods, the paint, the photographer) had been merely a prelude?

She stared at the phone. She waited. The seconds crawled by. Outside, a car drove past slowly, and the driver turned his head to look at her inside the booth, illuminated by the afternoon sun. She looked away, her face burning beneath the mask.

The game was no longer happening in isolated woods or clandestine studios. It was happening here, on a random street corner, in full view of anyone. And there she was, draped in the ornaments of her submission, waiting for a call that would lead her to the next step.