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.