The Gate In The Bleeding Sky

VII

The years passed, years where it was hard to forget everything, constant nightmares, constant memories, after a few weeks and not having been able to explain something logical to the adults in the community, my mother, on the recommendation of Don Juan Manuel Quispiyú, decided to send me to the city "Diego de Almagro", as I understood, I do not blame them, if what I am telling you now does not seem logical, the way I told it, with all my feelings drowning me, must have been crazy.

For some time, I only kept in contact with Jose Luis, who tells me that when he returned for help, it only took minutes, and that when they arrived at the entrance of the forest, they found me lying, dirty, wet and super pale, it seems that while for them minutes passed, for me it was hours. He also told me that they never found the six-pointed star, that Carlos and Julito never appeared, and that Miguel would be found by a villager on a visit to Rimbamarca, in a precarious state, with absolute amnesia and aggressiveness towards people, a vagabond with a bad head, they never managed to help him. He tells that Miguel's mother committed suicide some time later, because of the suffering, as the mother said in a panic attack, "the suffering in her son's eyes", Miguel disappeared shortly after that from Rimbamarca, it is not known for sure his destiny.

I ended up entering the faculty of journalism at the Universidad Nacional Ribero Santa Rosa, where I would meet again in person with Jose Luis, for whom we had only been able to chat by phone calls or letters. He had also entered that university, the Faculty of Archaeology and History, where he studied pedagogy and became a volunteer teacher for deep rural areas at the same time that he was finishing his last years of study.

He returned monthly to San José, sometimes he tried to encourage me to accompany him, but my silence and averted gaze every time I tried ended up discouraging his insistence, he had not seen what I had seen, he had not felt what I had felt, and although I do not blame him for not understanding me, I hated every time he wanted to bring up the subject, it was like rubbing salt in the wound, which although somewhat healed by time, was still open.

One day, I got a call from the faculty, they needed me for a journalistic internship, recently, the faculty had organized a newspaper to support young graduates and interns, we covered news of all kinds, sometimes collaborating with large national journalism companies, which helped to create contacts and that students and graduates of the University Ribero Santa Rosa got jobs. I was an intern, I had covered few stories, mostly in the area of internal support, that is, an office journalist, but this time, it seems that we had an exclusive, something that only the university knew and that could give prestige and be able to make our university newspaper project take strength and rise to the next level.

It turns out that from the Faculty of Archaeology and History came the information, secretly and directly to the Faculty of Journalism, of an archaeological discovery in a cave that had not been explored so far. According to my leader in charge, an earthquake had uncovered this series of caverns, where the archaeology faculty of the university had discovered megalithic constructions and liturgical objects never recorded, since they could not be recognized or compared to anything belonging to the local cultures known so far, in addition, there was talk of skulls with elongated heads and oval shapes.

My leader in charge, Pedro Rochi Pacurqui, a colleague from the faculty a few cycles up, said that in support of the rector's office it had been planned to maintain secrecy in this regard, and that the Faculty of Archaeology and History would only support the coverage of the university publishing house, to achieve greater state support for the initiative and to give recognition to the university journalistic project. Therefore, any work, any news or coverage that was not the cave of the earthquake was in the background, we were also required to maintain secrecy until at least the first edition of coverage was published, we all signed a contract, as the rector of the university promised to pay us for maintaining professionalism and publication. Resolutions were even sent to obtain facilities and support from professors.

While I was confused, I am a man of relatively high appetites for greatness, the thought that I might be part of something big was exciting, too bad it didn't last long, to avoid leaks, they didn't tell us where we were going until we were practically on our way out, no one even seemed to care. But, for some reason, I asked Pacurqui... I froze when he answered me, somewhat disinterestedly and jokingly.

- "No idea, a town in the middle of nowhere... San Genaro I think... Ah no, San José... San José Praga y Balboa".