Marc lay back on his bed. Research into the cathedral had been fruitless. There were no references to a cathedral with unfamiliar symbols, faces, swords or flowers. He came to the conclusion he had anticipated. This cathedral didn't exist. It was a dream after all.
Marc didn't want to sleep, which was logical given the frightful night he'd had last time. So he decided to think about how to find this cathedral. And whether or not it was a good idea to go there. If the man in black showed up by the time they'd found the place, he wasn't sure he'd be able to face him.
After spending an hour lying on his bed, Marc still didn't want to sleep. Trauma. That was how Marc saw it. Elie's head rolling on the floor, the man in black advancing towards him, different versions of the dream. Marc was the only one to survive, but that didn't stop him from being afraid of having another dream.
He thought back over his life. Just to force himself to sleep. He thought that if he just stood there, he'd eventually fall asleep. He thought back to his early days in high school. He'd been forced to move to another town because his family had moved away. He knew no one except his soccer teammates. He didn't talk much, didn't have many buddies, even if he did make a friend from day one. A friend he later lost sight of in 3rd year, as he wasn't in the same class.
His name was Mathiss. Together, they'd had a lot of laughs in first and second year. So much so that the teachers couldn't stand them any longer and started making remarks.
But in the third year, their friendship had cracked. Mathiss had joined another group. They didn't talk much anymore. But he had met a stranger who had just arrived from Mexico. His name was Thoma. They were inseparable. So much so that one day when he was playing baseball, they both caught the ball in the air at the same time. Thoma was one of his best friends. He could discuss anything and everything with him. But the following year, Thoma changed schools again and Marc began the worst year of his life.
Marc's fourth year was horrible. All his buddies had found other buddies to talk to. So he was alone. In class, he was with one of his buddies with whom he couldn't carry on a conversation without him ignoring him and turning to talk to Chris. Chris had started to grow in popularity. Girls were hanging around him and boys wanted to get closer to him to get closer to the girls. Marc hated it. So he preferred to keep to himself, but solitude was hard to bear.
Seconds turned into minutes, minutes into hours, and the lessons just wouldn't end. Marc just sat there, enduring the loneliness. No one to look out for him, no one to help him. He always ended up alone. On this year's school trip, Marc had gone to follow one of his buddies who had been left alone. He thought he was going to reconnect, but as soon as they found Chris's group, he stopped talking to him. They repeated the same things they'd done with his buddy. His mate didn't mind as long as he was with the others, but Marc was fed up.
So he decided to walk. Walk alone, away from the others. He wanted to sit down but couldn't find any benches. So he walked alone. Alone. Alone. And it was then that he realized he was really alone....
Marc had fallen asleep with a tear in his eye. He never wanted to go through that again.
He didn't dream about the man in black or anything to do with him. He dreamt of his loneliness that year. He saw himself walking alone again. But this time, it was rather peaceful.
The next day was almost like any other. Marc woke up in a good mood because he hadn't had a dream about the man in black. He looked at his phone, and to his surprise, the notifications of certain people's deaths had come back. Far fewer than last time, but they were there all the same.
Marc didn't understand. He had deactivated such notifications. He wanted to do it a second time, but found that the buttons for such notifications had already been deactivated. He couldn't figure it out. Maybe it was a bug, or maybe this wasn't the way to remove notifications.
Marc figured it wasn't too serious at the time. But on reflection, he thought about the fact that it might have something to do with this case. The last time this had happened, there had been a lot more. But what was the difference with that day? All those stories about the man in black, the cathedral, the visions and that word... That special word...
"Aregis."
As he said it, Marc received a notification on his phone. A man had just died in an accident. His car had crashed into another car on the road. Unfortunately, this one was on a bridge, and the car had abruptly gone off the bridge, crashing into the rocks far below. The man had obviously not survived.
Marc trembled as he held the phone. It couldn't have been. It had to be chance. He tried a second time.
"Aregis."
A new notification appeared. A woman had just killed her husband who was secretly beating her up. But Marc still didn't want to believe it.
"Aregis. Aregis. Aregis. Aregis. Aregis...."
He repeated it about fifty times, and about fifty notifs appeared on his phone. Each time he said it, another one came. There could be no doubt.
Every time he said the word Aregis, someone would die.
Tears streamed down Marc's cheeks. He was no longer in control of anything. The thing that had taken control of the situation was making it clear that he was the cause of all these murders. Marc imagined the man in black looking at him. Pointing at him. Nathanaël was looking at him, Elie was looking at him, Chris was looking at him, everyone was looking at him.
"Murderer."
They were all saying the same thing. Marc cowered in on himself. Then another word came to him. The word the man in black had said in his dream after killing Elie.
"Astreos".
Elie had gone to catch his bus, but didn't see Marc.
"Maybe he'll go with his parents?"
Elie was calmer than in recent days. She hadn't had any strange dreams or visions. She was feeling better than usual. But not seeing Marc didn't reassure her at all.
Arriving at school, Elie waited. She waited for Marc to arrive. Nathanaël saw her in the distance.
"How are things? No other anomalies to report?"
"Marc isn't here."
Nathanaël was surprised. She was worried about Marc. It wasn't the first time he hadn't taken the bus, and it wasn't the first time he'd arrived late. So he needn't have worried. But in view of recent events, it was true that the slightest action could bring suspicion.
"You know it's not the first time he's arrived late."
"I know. But he's going to ring the bell in 2 minutes."
"Precisely."
Elie wouldn't listen. She stood there waiting for Marc to ring, but he didn't come.
Elie eventually joined her friends and went to class, but she wasn't at all reassured. Without Marc, she felt as if the sky could fall in.
The English teacher also arrived late. The students were chatting in the corridor when she arrived. She opened the door and told the students to be quiet, as she had something to announce.
"Hurricane Ema has hit the TwentyProvince killing over 1 million people."
"What?"
The students couldn't believe their ears. One million dead was a substantial number.
"Yes. Apparently, it arrived earlier than expected and was more powerful than anticipated. The authorities couldn't do anything and East of the TwentyProvince was razed to the ground. It was classified as the one and only Category 6 hurricane."
Elie couldn't believe it. A million people had died in this tragedy. How could this be possible? With everything that was happening to her, she had to be contemporary with the biggest hurricane in history.
"We'll have a minute's silence this afternoon."
The class continued in silence. No one wanted to speak. Elie looked around. Then she noticed Diane, who had a brother who was in the VingtProvince at the time. Clearly, he was no longer there. Diane looked empty. Tears had dried on her cheeks. Still, she had made the effort to come to school in memory of her brother. He had said to her:
"Promise me you'll make it to school and meet me afterwards."
Diane had promised. But she could no longer keep her promise.
Marc hadn't come out of his room. His parents, thinking he was already at school, had both left for their respective jobs. Marc had just launched the biggest hurricane in history. He'd killed a million people. At that moment, there was no doubt. Those words were a portent of doom. As much as Aregis killed one person, Astreos condemned a million to death.
Marc had become what he hated most. A murderer. He didn't like them because he brought hatred, sadness, pain, depression and all kinds of negative feelings to the victims' families or loved ones. He was the kind of person who left behind grieving families, lonely dogs, broken friendships, hearts to be mended.
Marc understood a style of murderer. Those who did it for revenge. No matter how many times we said that revenge solved nothing, sometimes, when your daughter had been raped, then stoned, I don't think you'd just want the offender to go to prison. You'd want him dead.
Marc felt like one of those murderers. He wanted to die. He'd just killed people for a simple test. As they used to say, curiosity will kill you one day. In this case, curiosity had just killed over a million people.
Human beings are curious, aren't they? Isn't it with the same curiosity that Adam ate the forbidden fruit? The human being can't help thinking: if I do this, what's going to happen next? This unbreakable desire to open the door, to look where one shouldn't look. Many end up traumatized after that.
Curiosity is like hands holding your head. If you've noticed something, the hands will turn your head without you noticing. Then they'll tell you it's dangerous. Your head will want to turn the other way, but the hands will hold you firmly. They'll keep turning your head towards the thing. If you have a good mind, you'll resist. If not, you just watch.
Marc had given in.
Elie quickly left the classroom. She had to go and see Marc. He clearly hadn't come that day. She picked up her phone and called her mother.
"Mom, can you pick me up today?"
"Yes, but you can take the bus, can't you?"
"Is it urgent, please?"
"Okay, I'll be right there."
Elie's mother had arrived in a hurry. So much so that she'd nearly skidded off the road.
"How much time do you have left?"
"No problem."
The car was obviously going too fast. Even though it wasn't a sports car, Catherine had managed to overtake three cars at once. The other drivers were honking at her, but she didn't care. Her daughter had an emergency.
The journey took eight minutes less than usual. Elie's mother looked at her daughter.
"Go on, sweetie."
"Thanks, Mom."
"You're welcome."
She watched her daughter get out of the car and run. But she wasn't going home. Elie's mother watched her daughter run straight for Marc's house and opened her mouth wide. If she had to hurry, it was because of this punk. She couldn't help letting out a scream as tears welled up in her eyes.
"I'm such a bad mother."
Elie headed straight for Marc's house. Nothing seemed to stop him. It was very windy that day. A tree branch had been blown off and was flying towards Elie. She saw the branch coming straight towards her head and with a movement she didn't know she had, she leaned back to dodge it.
Elie didn't even realize what she'd done and went to knock on the door of Marc's house, while little Timmy filmed everything on his phone with his mouth wide open.
She rang the doorbell. No one answered. Elie thought Marc was at home, so there was no way he wouldn't open the door. Elie tried a second time and a third, but nobody answered.
A car pulled up in front of the house. It was Marc's mother.
"Elie. How are you? I suppose you've come to see Marc. I heard you..."
"Marc didn't come to school today."
Marc's mother seemed troubled. She would have been told. Unless her husband had forgotten to tell her again.
"Do you know why?"
"No. I figured you knew?"
Marie opened the door. They both went upstairs to Marc's room. When they opened the door, no one was inside. Marc wasn't there.
His mother began to panic. Elie rushed out of the room and grabbed her phone. But she soon realized she didn't have his number.
"Damn!"
They searched the house for a long time, but couldn't find it. Marc had vanished into thin air.
Marc's father arrived.
"Go for it."
"Well, Elie? Have you come to see Marc?"
"Your son is nowhere to be found."
She'd yelled at him many times in their lives, but now she really had to scream.
"He's not in his room?"
"No. He didn't go to school."
"Oh yes, that's right. Didn't I tell you?"
"No, you didn't."
"Well, I can tell you now. Your son didn't go to school."
"But it's no use to me now."
While Marie grabbed her husband by the collar. Elie searched every corner of the house as if it were her home. She even found old family photos of Marc as a child. He often smiled in the photos. Elie wondered where that innocent smile had gone. She remained glued to one of the photos where Marc was holding a huge cuddly toy.
Marc took one last look at the sky before heading home. His parents must have been worried. He'd decided to go out for a change of scene, but when he entered the house, he found himself in quite a mess.
His mother was strangling his father and shaking him left and right. Elie was rummaging through the family photo cabinets. Everything was either misplaced or broken, or outright out of the house.
"What the hell is going on here?"
The three people he'd asked didn't even turn around, continuing their strange activity. Marc couldn't understand how it had come to this. When no one answered, he went into the house, grabbed a cookie and a can and went to his room.
"I'm in my room just in case."
"Okay, Marc."
All three had answered at the same time. Marc went up to his room.
"Say, shouldn't we keep looking for Marc?"
"Yes, but let me shake him up a bit more."
Human reaction time is less than a second. This meant that he was more than capable of realizing that the person he was looking for had passed in front of them. But obviously, too absorbed in their occupation, their reaction time had exceeded a minute.
"Marc?"
The three turned back to the stairs.
"So, honey, was that Marc we just saw coming up the stairs?"
"Yes."
"And who are we looking for again?"
"To tell you the truth, I don't think we were looking there."
The three looked at each other. Marie noticed that Elie had tons of photos of Marc in her hand and was holding her husband by the collar as she was supposed to be looking for Marc. Elie noticed that she had tons of photos of Mark in her hands as she had to look for Mark. Marc's father, well aware that he'd been shaken all over the place by his wife, noticed that Elie had tons of photos of Marc in her hands while she had to look for Marc. And so did he.
The three looked at each other one last time before looking up the stairs again.
"Marc."
"So Elie, why do you have this in your hand?"
Marie let go of her husband. Elie kept the photos. They both ran to the bedroom. They opened the door without permission and it wasn't even a second before Mark was surrounded by arms that hugged him a little too tightly.
"Marc, you're okay. I was scared to death when I heard you didn't go to school and weren't at home."
"Marc, are you okay? You didn't come today. You promised me you'd always be here and that I shouldn't worry."
Marc noticed the photos Elie had of him.
"I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. No need to worry I just wasn't feeling well is all."
"Do you want us to make a doctor's appointment?"
"No need, I'm fine. I think I've been a bit lazy."
"That's fine. But don't ever do that to us again. Your father and I were scared to death."
"And so was I."
"Why didn't you call me then?"
Marc's mother realized that she had a phone and could very well have called her son. The fact was, at the time, she'd completely forgotten it existed.
"I don't know. Well, I'll leave you to it."
Marie didn't want to be taunted by her son.
Elie was left alone with him in his room. The moment she realized this, her heart began to beat faster.
"I suppose you want me to tell you if my sudden absence is due to the man in black."
Elie calmed down. She had to be serious to talk about this subject.
"Sit down, please."
"Where?
"Wherever you can sit down."
Elie's heart began to beat faster again. There were only three places to sit in this room. The floor, the desk chair and Marc's bed. Elie had no idea which one to choose. Finally, she sat down on the bed. She was beside herself when she sat down, but became serious again when she heard Marc's voice darken.
"This morning, I received yet another notification about the death of someone in the world. I then thought that I hadn't deactivated the button concerning this kind of notification."
Elie remembered. Marc had told Nathanaël about it the last time they'd seen each other at school.
"I looked and it wasn't that. Then I thought about it and deduced that it might have something to do with this case. I thought about everything we'd said together and everything we'd been through. I said the word out loud."
Elie knew what word he was talking about and wanted to know what had happened.
"A notification appeared when I said it. By the way, every time I said that word, someone in the world died. To be sure, I repeated it about fifty times."
Elie was shocked. She understood why Marc hadn't gone to school. He must have had all those deaths on his conscience. His mind must have been shattered. If she'd been in his place, she didn't know if she'd have gone on or not.
She suddenly thought of that hurricane that had hit the VingtProvince and a bead of sweat appeared on her forehead.
"You must have heard about the hurricane that hit the VingtProvince. That was me. I remembered the word I'd heard in my dream. The moment I said it the notification appeared on my phone."
Marc stared at the ground, not daring to look up. Elie couldn't believe her ears again. She who had seen Diane, staring blankly at the end of the classroom because her brother was dead, was sitting in the murderer's room.
"But, we pronounced it too. Why is it only you who got these notifs."
"I don't know."
Marc still hadn't looked up. He was staring at the floor. Elie was looking at the carpet too. She watched him for a long time without saying anything. It clearly wasn't Marc's fault. His only problem had been to be too curious about the whole affair. Elie would have done the same. She couldn't hate Marc. He'd stood by her so far and hadn't even asked to know what she'd seen. He'd stood by her without question.
Now he was the one in trouble. Even if he was a mass murderer, she could clearly put this in the involuntary category. She didn't blame Marc, but she was sad for Diane.
Elie stood up, crossed the room and went to hug Marc.
"Don't worry, it's not your fault. It's not your fault. Whatever happens, until we finish this story, I'll be by your side too. You're a good person, Marc, don't forget that."
Marc was still staring at the ground. He didn't think he could be a good enough person to be comforted like that. But for all his pride, he cried his eyes out in Elie's arms.