A 12-year-old boy is asked to write an essay about what his family does at night.

In the shantytowns of Caracas, teenage Aixa finds herself unexpectedly pregnant and trapped between conflicting forces: her grandmother Carmen, young yet matriarchal head of the sprawling family clan, desperately tries to prevent Aixa from repeating the cycle of teenage motherhood that has plagued the women in her house for generations; meanwhile Ramon, the drug-linked young father, more obsessed with the idea of a child than with responsibility, resorts to threats—“If you get rid of the baby, I’ll kill you”—to impose his will. All around Aixa, others believe they know what’s best for her—but the choice of life or death, hope or despair, remains hers alone in a world where survival is the only certainty.