The camera is held by an unseen fourth person. A man’s voice, low and amused: "Recordando para a posteridade. Digam aí, o que é o louco desejo da sobrinha?"

The frame glitches. For three seconds, static. Then the image returns, but something is wrong. The lava lamp is off. The three women are gone. Instead, the camera is now fixed on a closed door at the top of the basement stairs. The door has a heavy lock on the outside – the kind you bolt from the hallway.

(Translation: "My crazy desire is that he never existed. That we never have to be afraid of the goodnight kiss." )

The sisters (they are not truly sisters, the file will reveal, but cousins raised together) exchange glances. Preta, the eldest, leans forward. Her desire, she says, is to burn down her uncle’s law firm. She describes it in meticulous detail – the smell of melting filing cabinets, the way the smoke would curl under the door of his corner office.

"Meu desejo louco," she whispers, "é que ele nunca tenha existido. Que a gente nunca precise ter medo do beijo de boa noite."

The video ends abruptly. The last frame is a single word, typed over the black screen in white Courier font: (DELETED).

(Translation: "You shouldn’t have found this file." )

But the .avi remains. Corrupted. Partially recovered. And whoever you are, whoever clicked on this file in the dead of night – As-Panteras are watching you now. Because the louco desejo da sobrinha was never just a desire. It was a prophecy.