When our work concluded in those remote lands, our mobile clinic returned to the busy itinerary we were accustomed to, but for the following weeks, we could hardly talk about anything other than Cerro Alto. Mr. Antonio and Mr. José, as adults from a different era than ours, were immediately drawn to the belief that a Witch had fallen upon the Sierra Madre Oriental. The locals were sure of it, although they were unaware of the kind of power possessed by that fallen being, nor could they guess its true intentions. Fear had them dominated, but love for their lands prevented them from fleeing. We, the young ones—Daniel, the other doctor, Mateo, the nurse, and myself—remained skeptical of such a theory. Mateo jokingly acknowledged the existence of evil women in the service of malicious purposes, but we all agreed that selling your soul to the Devil, flying through the skies engulfed in flames, and accumulating mystical powers that defied physical laws were beyond any human capability. Our best guess was about the impact of a stellar object, a hypothesis that explained some of the most striking elements of that story they had shared with us. The roar they heard could have been a sonic boom caused by an impressive acceleration of the object, while the subsequent glow could have been the same object catching fire upon entering our atmosphere. The fire could have originated from a residual chemical element from space, something whose reaction with high temperatures invoked the bluish hue that everyone perceived. The low temperature of the fire was difficult to explain, although we were inclined to think that both the locals' ignorance and the impact of the moment made them relate the cold mountain night breezes to the fire. The low fertility of the lands, on the other hand, could have been due to soil contamination, which in turn gave a bad taste to well water. The rest we attributed to collective hysteria whose effects could have extended thanks to the fear that one generation instilled in the subsequent ones.
Such a conclusion killed any fantastic trait of the story, although we couldn't help but be fascinated by what had happened, and we couldn't hide our desire to explore the impact cave to see if we could rescue some residual piece from distant worlds.
The next time we visited Cerro Alto was in August 2022, almost a year after our first contact. We returned having agreed to sneak away one day to explore the mountain range. Fate would drag me to do exactly that, but what dwelled in the bowels of the earth was far from the astronomical discovery I hoped it would be and raised questions that still haunt my nights.
As soon as we arrived in Cerro Alto, just before dawn, we knew something was terribly wrong. A heavy silence was the only thing to greet us on that occasion. It seemed so strange to us that we didn't hesitate to go knocking on doors that no one answered. Mateo was the first to dare to disturb people's privacy by peering through the windows. Thanks to him, we confirmed that the houses were completely empty. We advanced increasingly impatiently to find signs of life, but all the houses had been abandoned. The town seemed deserted. Some windows were broken, and there were signs of violence on some walls. When pushing a poorly closed door, Daniel came face to face with a huge rat that lunged at him. His reflexes were enough to contain the bites on the sole of his sneakers, but I had to help him shake off the furious animal with my kicks. The first one I landed made the rat fall to the ground, and that's when I noticed swollen veins on its body that had grown to resemble tumors. Their color was a bluish-green. A timely glance also allowed me to see that its eyes were injected with the same color. The rat reacted quickly, so I had no choice but to throw it into the bushes with a second kick, at which point it disappeared from our sight.
As we advanced, thanks to the whispering behind a window, we discovered that people were taking refuge in the town's warehouse, a large building where they stored the reserves of their crops, which were diminishing every year. The place was filled with distressed families, with parents calming their children and a few individuals moving among the crowd to bring water, food, or sheets to those in need. The patriarch hurried to greet us as soon as he noticed our presence, concerned about whatever we might have seen in the town. The people around us became agitated as soon as they heard us mention the rat we had discovered. Mr. Arnulfo expressed regret for what had happened to us but thanked God that there were no other beasts around when we arrived. We asked for the reason behind all the strange behavior of the town. It was surely something they would have preferred to keep secret out of pride, but given the circumstances, the patriarch had no choice but to reveal to us the terrible events that had led to the destruction of the town and the creation of that improvised refuge.
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It turned out that Cerro Alto had been besieged by unprecedented animal attacks. The first assaults had occurred around 3 in the morning when insistent scratches on windows and doors woke up the most vigilant members of each family. Rats, squirrels, and other creatures of similar sizes were the ones roaming around the houses. The locals could barely see their shadows moving in the darkness, but everyone managed to perceive a nauseating aroma whose description varied between things like stagnant water, rust, and rotten fruit. Later on, the problem evolved with larger animals such as foxes and wolves, which ended up waking most people with their insistent knocks on the windows. What followed was a horror that each one experienced in their own way. The onslaught of the creatures was so severe that they soon began to invade the first houses, causing panic and spreading cries for help that soon flooded the entire town. Looking around, we realized the consequences of such an attack, as scratches and bites overflowed wherever we looked. Despite that, the locals were fortunate to have faced unusually weak creatures, as not even the wolves had managed to cause bleeding that raised much concern. The families managed to get rid of their attackers and instinctively moved towards the center of the town, where they thought of turning the warehouse into their shelter. A huge jaguar appeared among the crowd of frenzied beasts by the time they were taking refuge in the place. It seemed more interested in growling than attacking, as it chased a young mother and her son through several streets, only showing its teeth, but its imposing presence disturbed almost all the locals regardless of how safe the warehouse seemed. This continued for hours while the siege of the beasts continued, even when the sounds stopped and everything outside seemed quieter.
We attended to the wounded as best as we could. We cleaned wounds and controlled some minor bleeding. We also suggested that everyone be vaccinated against rabies, as that was the only disease that would explain what happened, but no one wanted to believe us, and we couldn't see any signs supporting our hypothesis.
While I was doing my duties, an eight-year-old boy talked to me. It had been him and his mother who were harassed by the jaguar. He insisted a lot on having seen blue eyes and things "like ticks" clinging to its back. The mother assured that it was some kind of misunderstanding, as that was the best way to calm her son's concerns, but the truth was that she had been too worried about their well-being to pay attention to the appearance of the animal.
Such anecdote reminded me of the blue and sickly eyes of the rat that had attacked us, as well as the tumors surrounding its back, but I had been the only one to notice, and I couldn't talk to anyone about it. By dawn, everything had calmed down. The patriarch and some men cautiously went out to explore the area. We waited impatiently for their return until they confirmed that everything was fine. The livestock was stressed, and the fact that some fences were broken had caused a third of them to disappear, but the rest were okay.
During the following days, we greeted the night cautiously, fearing that the nightly siege would return with greater force. In the first few days, some locals managed to spot animal activity around the town, although no attacks occurred since then. I can't say that things normalized in Cerro Alto because in the subsequent weeks, we received some cases of feverish delusions in adults who had suffered the worst of that night. These delusions mostly occurred in the middle of sleep and were related to panic attacks where muscle contractions, moans of pain, and incoherent phrases dominated individuals for several minutes before regaining consciousness. We couldn't relate such a state to an ailment other than mental, so when these cases occurred, little or nothing could be done. That's where the older members of the community came in, who with teas, broths of strange herbs, prayers, and ash marks on the skin managed to appease the intensity of the delusions.
At the end of our stay, we left Cerro Alto hoping that the situation would improve by the time we returned, but fate would push us to discover that the horrors lurking in such a peaceful community were more real than we had imagined.