The Cursed Lotería

You wake up with a terrible headache and, with it, your identity has been forgotten. You are no longer who you used to be: you are now one more inmate in the gloomy wards of La Castañeda, Mexico City's infamous asylum, which operated from 1910 to 1968.

Before you stands the Chief Psychiatrist. To her you are not a person: you are the perfect subject for her next clinical experiment. Around her lurks Patient Zero, a living warning and the exact reflection of what awaits you if your mind breaks tonight.

The treatment has begun. You will undergo a sensory shock therapy designed to fragment your mind, and your only hope of regaining your sanity is to hold on to memory. In the darkness of your confinement, the dishes placed before you will be your only lifeline: pure, primal ingredients that will trigger specific memories buried in your subconscious.

But salvation is not individual. To prove you still have your reason, you must debate with your fellow inmates, connect your minds and reach absolute agreement. As a table, you must shout in unison the exact word that evokes that shared memory: the ingredient. Get it right and the psychiatrist will note your progress. Hesitate, let madness divide you or say the wrong word, and control will be lost completely: Patient Zero will be free to unleash a chaos no one can escape. Will you remember who you are before you lose your mind?

The echo of an ancestral wail rises in the middle of an ordinary banquet. It is La Llorona —the Weeping Woman, Mexico's most famous ghost, who wanders the rivers crying for her children. An icy breath from the river has snuffed out every candle in the church. The darkness is absolute. Outside, the current carries a spirit that finds no rest; inside, the spirit has crossed the threshold.

In the gloom, a medium who knows that urban legends are real warnings tries to stop the creature from wreaking havoc. Meanwhile, a skeptical priest, clinging to reason, refuses to accept that his sanctuary has been desecrated. But the wailing demands an offering from the guests, and if its conditions are not met, no one may make it home.

Tonight, survival depends on your sense of taste. Your table will be served a series of deceptively sweet, comforting bites. But every round hides a trap: one of those bites holds the very essence of a tear.

If fate chooses you to receive this offering and you fail to recognize it, you will turn to stone. To face it, your mission is to swallow the tear and absorb La Llorona's agony without making a single sound or face. If your expression cracks, if instinct betrays you and you let out one moan, the spirit will know exactly where you are. The weeping will fall upon your table and the darkness will claim you forever. Do you have the physical and mental strength to swallow the pain before she finds you?

The dark, thick waters of the Xochimilco canals have swallowed your trajinera —the colorful boats of Mexico City's floating gardens— on the darkest night of the year. It has capsized at one of Xochimilco's most sinister places: the Island of the Dolls, where hundreds of old dolls hang from the trees.

Guarding this plastic purgatory rises the spirit of Don Julián, who welcomes you with a banquet. He knows the rules for surviving the island, but its true owner has already noticed you: from the fog, the drowned girl demands an immediate tribute. She wants new toys for her collection.

Your only salvation is the offering. If you want to see the dawn and not end up hanging by the neck from the branches of the chinampa, you must calm her fury. In absolute darkness, you will reach beneath your seat and feel blindly for the small remains of a toy. Your mission is to put it together in the gloom.

Get it right and she will spare your life. Fail, let instinct betray you and offer the wrong toy, and her cry will shatter the silence, flood the room and drag your table to the bottom of the canal.