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.