I didn’t need to read any further.
It was Daniel.
Thinner. With a sparse beard. Covered in bandages. But it was him. The scar above his eyebrow. The slightly crooked nose. Those eyes.
I called the clinic until a nurse answered. When I said Daniel’s name, she fell silent.
Then she whispered:
“He didn’t have any ID when he arrived. No license plates. No documents. But he kept repeating a phrase…”
I felt my heart stop.
“Robles lied.”
I bought the first flight. Lucía wouldn’t let me go alone.
At dusk, I was behind that clinic, watching a man sitting on a bench.
“Daniel,” I said.
He turned around.
For a second his face moved, but it wasn’t recognition.
It was fear.
“Excuse me,” he said softly. “Do I know you?”
Before I could answer, he grabbed my wrist tightly and whispered,
“Don’t trust Robles.”
And then I understood that the worst was just beginning.
PART 2
Dr. Elena Vázquez explained that Daniel had survived the explosion because he had been thrown into a ravine before the second blast. A farming family found him two days later, nearly dead, without a radio, without dog tags, without his full uniform, without anything that could identify him.
“His memory is fragmented,” the doctor said. “Sometimes he remembers phrases, sounds, isolated faces. But there are two words he repeats a lot: Robles and boxes.”
