MONSTER OF THE UNKNOWN

DWINDLING IDEOLOGIES

Days have passed since Aaron discovered he may be the offspring of a dead Romanian cultist and he hasn't been acting like himself ever since. With Rob out of town on a business trip, Aaron's too paranoid to even step foot out of the apartment. He just locks himself indoors, over thinking all day and too afraid to call his friends. He doesn't know if he can trust them any more, not after such a revelation.

'If Rob's a normal, does that mean he's also in on the conspiracy? Could UDAP have sent him to monitor me after abducting me and killing my real parents? What about Mathéo ? He's a normal too. Could he be part of UDAP? Maybe that's why he always insists on us remaining best friends; he's a spy sent by the organization to ensure I never suspect them. No wonder he always tries to maintain his fake good mood, but that'd mean the stalker is actually on my side. Perhaps he warned me about Mathéo because he knows his true motive. Could that be possible? Could any of this possible?'

At this point, Aaron's thoughts are constantly in a frenzy. He no longer knows what to believe and there's no one he can tell about it, but there's one person. The same one that led him to the discovery, the stalker. But how will he reach him?

'His number is on the card,' Aaron immediately recalls as he begins to rummage his entire room for the piece of paper. He soon finds it in the back pocket of one of his jean trousers, but before he has the chance to dial the number, the front door bell rings. 'Who is it?'

* * * *

"Have you seen him today?" Mathéo asks Sara as he occupies the seat across her in the cafeteria. They're both worried about Aaron. It's been a week now since their little weekend exploration and he's been continuously skipping school since then without telling them anything.

"No, he skipped again today," Sara responds with a sullen facial expression as she stops eating. "He hasn't even answered any of my calls."

"Mine too. He hasn't been active on social media either." Before continuing, Mathéo comes closer to Sara's ear to whisper so that no one eavesdrops on them. "I think he's still hung up on the whole psycho cultist's journal."

"Can you blame him? He just found out that he was kidnapped as a baby and his biological mother was killed 'cause they considered her a threat. That's not the kind of stuff you just take in easily. What would you do if you were him?"

"All that is just speculation, we don't know for certain that he was the baby the writer talked about. For all we know, the whole diary could simply be a hoax that was concocted for the purpose of convincing Aaron to join a terrorist organization. Why else would the stalker lead him there? The only part of the entire story that sounds remotely true is the fact that an ability like Aaron's can be a game changer for those zegen cultists. If I was a blood-thirsty criminal, I would probably go crazy to have him on my side."

The argument goes back and forth between the two of them until they eventually resolve to pay their close friend a visit after school. Some hours later, the sound of the bell goes off once again to signify the end of the day and Sara and Mathéo go along with Laura to Aaron's. After ringing the front door bell a couple of times, their classmate finally opens the door.

"Why are you guys here?" Aaron asks them almost furiously. It's like he's not even trying to deny the fact that he's been intentionally avoiding them.

"You've been radio silent for days, Aaron. We needed to know you weren't dead," Sara retorts before pushing past him to enter inside, and the other follow in after her. "What the fuck happened here? Was it a hurricane?"

To their surprise, the whole flat is in utter disarray. Clothes are everywhere, the odor of overstayed dirty dishes is oozing all-over the place and all the curtains are shut, putting the entire apartment in total darkness. Aaron's power may be related to shadows, but this a bit extreme from him. The home looks like its tenant died a long time ago and nobody ever bothered removing the corpse.