“It was deliberate,” Morel said. “Julian was trying to leave a trail.”
The theory fit with something that had always worried the family: Julián was an experienced hiker. It didn’t make sense for him to disappear on a moderately difficult trail. But if for some reason he’d chosen an alternative route, perhaps to shelter from a sudden storm, it would have been plausible for him to have tried to orient himself using the trail markers.
Twenty feet away, they found the second clue: a small metal container with an expiration date two years after his disappearance. This puzzled them. It seemed to indicate that someone, not necessarily Julián, had brought food there after 2020.
“Is it possible someone used this crack as a hiding place?” asked one of the technicians.
“Or that someone found Julián and Clara,” replied Morel. “And didn’t report it.”
From that point, the descent became more difficult. The crack widened on one side, forming an irregular cavity. Shining a flashlight around the area, they saw what appeared to be a small makeshift camp: the remains of an electric blanket, an empty can, a short rope, and, at the bottom, a partially wet notebook.
Morel carefully opened it. Many pages were illegible, but a few words were discernible: “not coming up,” “wait,” “injured,” “we hear voices.” There were no names, but the handwriting appeared to be Julián’s.
The most disturbing sentence appeared on a central page:
“I can’t move. She must stay…”
The sentence ended there, truncated, as if Julián had abruptly stopped writing.
“Something serious happened here,” Morel said. “Julian was injured, but Clara is still alive.”
The most likely hypothesis was that they had been trapped after a partial fall. But one crucial piece of information was missing: none of the bodies were present. And given the depth of the cave, it was unlikely they had managed to escape on their own without leaving a trace.
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