It took Marc a while to come to his senses. He returned to school a few days later. His mates asked him how he was, and he replied that he'd just had a headache.

Elie had arrived at the same time as him. The rumor that they were a couple quickly spread. Every time people saw them together, they hoped to see something. But Nathanaël was always coming to meet them.

There was nothing special about classes that day. Chris had spent the day making fun of Marc.

“You're back the fragile one.”

Whenever he made a joke about Marc, his buddies and groupies laughed. There were those who didn't want to make fun of Marc and who held back their laughter even if it meant losing popularity, and those who didn't hold back at all, even though the joke wasn't funny, so as not to be frowned upon by Chris.

Marc knew what each of them was thinking. He knew them all very well. He went on as if nothing had happened, which made Chris and his companions doubt the level of his jokes.

Nathanaël came up to Marc at recess.

“You're doing better. Elie told me what happened. It's not your fault...”

“You've already told me, Nath. It's very kind of you to worry about me.”

Nathanaël could see that what he was saying to reassure Marc wasn't really working. He had dark circles that he couldn't hide, and he'd become distant and absent these days. He was becoming increasingly lonely. But Elie and Nathanaël always stayed by his side. In their school, the students called them “the trio”.

“Listen. I don't know if you're interested in the rest of the investigation, but I still haven't given up. During my research, I asked around about the people who were dying because of the word and I noticed that they all had one thing in common. They were already dead before you said the word. Logical, because it would take time for people to notice the deaths before sending the notification. ”

Marc listened to Nathanaël in silence.

“I've been looking through the notices you've received, and there's one that caught my eye. A man died in his field but we still don't know why. The strange thing is that he died about a year before you received the notification.”

Marc opened his eyes wide. A year before. This meant that notifications didn't necessarily have anything to do with the note. No. Marc remembered this notification very well. It had appeared the last time he'd uttered the word. It was definitely related. But it also meant that the word didn't give a damn about the laws of space-time. A word that transcended time but still afflicted death. A word that, above all, made its speaker pay.

“The field was left abandoned and no one wanted to buy it because everyone thinks it's cursed.”

“He lived alone?

“Yes. No one to take it over.”

“And?”

“I asked my parents to buy it.”

Marc spat out the water he'd just drunk. He knew Nathanaël was rich, but that he was such a spoiled brat surprised him. All the guy had to do was ask and his parents would buy him a field.

“Don't worry about the price. Even though it was huge, the price had come down because the guy had paranormally died in it.”

That wasn't why Marc was worried.

“I was thinking we could go for a drive. What do you say?”

Marc pondered. He clearly didn't want to face the man in black. Nor did he want to lose his companions to any of this nonsense. The only way to succeed without loss was for him to go it alone, but Nathanaël was obviously not going to agree.

“Elie mustn't be involved.”

“You know very well she'll follow you.”

“But don't say anything to her on the spot.”

Nathanaël sighed.

“All right, then. We'll go after school. You'll take my bus and I'll get you there.”

“Okay.”

Elie had noticed the duo chatting in the distance.

“They excluded me like that.”

She watched them leave after class. Marc hadn't taken his bus, but Nathanaël's. However, Elie knew exactly where he lived.

When she got home, she went straight to her mother.

“Mom, I've got an emergency.”

“If it's about that Marc guy again, don't count on me.”

“It's not about Marc.”

Elie's mother was slumped on the sofa. She'd spent the night telling herself she was a bad mother. Her eyes, too, were tracing dark circles. She looked into her daughter's eyes.

“Can I really trust you? You're not going to see that punk?”

Elie struggled to hold her gaze. Technically, she wasn't really lying. She was going to Nathanaël's. Where Marc was supposed to be.

Catherine resumed her strict motherly demeanor. She stood up as if she'd beaten Myk Tyson. Her face regained its color. Her muscles swelled on the spot. She looked her daughter straight in the eye with an intense gaze.

“Here we go.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

Marc arrived in front of Nathanaël's house. The first thing that came to his mind was to wonder how it was possible to have such a luxurious house in the area where they lived.

“Welcome, sir.”

The second thing that occurred to him was that even though comic books didn't exist in real life, Alfred was very much present before him.

“You brought a friend. That's a first.”

“No time for your courtesies, Fred. Can you take us to that famous field?”

“The one you recently asked your parents about? No problem, Fred. Hop in.”

The third thing that occurred to him was that Nathanaël really was Batman's son.

They rode for barely 20 minutes. Marc suddenly regretted having killed a man who lived so close to home. But was it really his fault? It had been a year.

They arrived at a huge field. As Marc didn't know records, he quickly qualified it as the largest field in the world.

“If you plan to explore the place, be very careful because you could get lost. You could always locate my phone or the car. I'll be here waiting for you.”

“Thanks Fred.”

“You're welcome.”

Marc and Nathanaël walked around the field for a long time, looking for any sign of an entrance.

“What are we looking for anyway?”

“We should be looking for where the corpse was. But to do that, we'll have to enter the field.”

“Then what are we waiting for.”

“Aren't you afraid to go in?”

“No.”

Marc's eyes showed nothing. As if whatever was going to happen didn't affect him anymore.

“Let's go then. Follow me.”

The two entered the field. Marc followed Nathanaël through the immense ears of wheat. They walked for ten minutes. Marc could see nothing but wheat on the horizon. The wind blew across the ears, and the landscape was beautiful when they could see it. But a little too quiet.

Marc walked. He walked and walked. Nathanaël didn't seem to stop.

“Are we going to be much longer?”

No answer. It wasn't Nathanaël. Someone was there, stirring the ears of wheat. Marc kept walking, even though he'd noticed the deception. The man in front of him was walking fast and had disappeared in a flash. Marc kept walking to see if he was a little further ahead. But he stumbled over something. He opened his eyes wide again when he saw what it was.