Gustave is a 17-year-old boy living alone with his father. The latter decides to send him to the same boarding school he attended at his age. The young man is then sent to Buenos Aires for a language trip, cut off from the outside world. Although usually a loner, he meets new friends, Augusto, Heinrich and Gunther, but something is not right. The young man quickly falls apart, and the nightmare begins.
At the same time, we get to know the young Gabriela who describes her life at the age of 16 through her intimate letters. She is afraid of dying in this prison and of never knowing the child she is carrying.
At an interval of 17 years, Gabriela and Gustave both come to know the secrets of the school and share the same terror of its teachers and students. Indeed, the Perón boarding school has strange morals – and that is especially true of its head, Colonel Perez. This soldier seems to know neither laws nor limits and runs his boarding school with an iron fist. In his school, one learns about manipulation and torture, as well as the doctrine of all former despots. The colonel’s objective is to form an elite of authoritarian rulers, free of any emotion.
But, with the intervention of the Shadow, a mysterious and calculating character, will the massacre last much longer? Or will fear change sides?