Time awaits the fatal moment of your destiny.

"What about sweets, Harry?" Raymond asked, looking at the sweets coated with sugar in his brother's hand.

"They are not for us," Harry replied, his low and serious voice. "They are for the ... others."

The brothers exchanged a look of knowledge, the weight of their mission by pressing them as a thick fog on a moonless night. They were the chosen ones, in charge of delivering these sugary lures to the edge of the forest where the invisible danger lurked. Their father had warned them about the strangers who had been seen, mysteriously similar to the people they knew. These Doppelgängers, as they had called them, had been causing problems around the people, and depended on Harry and Raymond establishing a trap and helping the people of the town to discover the mystery.

"Remember," his father had said, his eyes shone with a mixture of fear and hope, "once the Doppelgängers are trapped, we will be safe again."

But Harry had his doubts. The Doppelgängers were not so old uproar. They were reflections of the villagers themselves, twisted by a dark force in beings of pure malice. What would happen if the sweet was too tempting? What happens if they accidentally attracted someone they knew in the trap?

Raymond nodded solemnly, putting a lock of lost hair behind his ear. "Are we going to finish this?"

When they approached the tree, the air became full of anticipation. The shadows danced and played in their eyes, which hinders the distinction between the real and the imagined. The world that surrounded them felt familiar and alien, as if they had stumbled with a forgotten corner of a nightmare he had ever had.

Suddenly, a branch broke under Harry's foot, and the forest was silent. The brothers froze, their hearts squeezed. They knew they were being observed.

"Look!" Raymond whispered, pointing out a figure emerging from the trees. It was the spit of his neighbor, Mr. Smith, but his eyes were cold, his smile too wide. The Doppelgängers had arrived, and were about to find out if their plan would work.

Mr. Smith's figure looked around, his gaze resisted. His hand contracted, reaching the sweet.

"Now!" Harry whispered and Raymond threw a handful of baits coated with undergrowth in the weed. The Doppelgängers continued, their eyes shone with greed, and the brothers retired to the safety of the shadows, observing how their lures disappeared in the dark.

But Harry could not shake the feeling that his plan was defective. The Doppelgängers had been intelligent so far, avoiding detection and imitating those who sought to damage. What would happen if they had anticipated this movement? What would happen if the real danger was not in the forest, but closer than they could have imagined?

The forest remained still, the almost deafening silence. Time marked, every second is a small hammer blow in the anvil of fate. And while they waited for the trap to come out, the brothers could not avoid asking if they had just played in the hands of something much more sinister than they could have planned.

By Carlos del Puente relatos