It took Marc a while to come to his senses.
Going back to school was probably the hardest part.
Facing people who might have lost their loved ones in the tragedy. Knowing that in the middle of all that, he was a murderer.
Marc was crushed by guilt.
Unable to even look at himself in the mirror, the hardest thing was probably facing the others.
When Marc got onto his usual bus, he felt like everyone was staring at him.
Every conversation seemed to revolve around him. The looks never left him. And in his mind, the usual tired morning tone suddenly felt arrogant and harsh.
Marc wanted to throw up, to get off the bus as fast as possible. But suddenly, the driver's voice brought him back to reality.
"Well then, young man, are you getting on?"
Marc looked at the man who had just spoken to him—without really looking at him.
What he was seeing wasn't really the driver anymore anyway.
The voices stopped, and this time, everyone really was looking at him.
"Did he go crazy? What's wrong with him?"
"Who is that? Why is he just standing there?"
"That's Marc, right? Is he okay?"
Marc tried to move, but couldn't take a single step. Then suddenly, Elie's hand on his back pushed him forward, making him stumble.
"Elie?"
"Come on, Marc. Let's go."
Elie wasn't angry. Quite the opposite—she was trying to encourage him calmly. Marc hadn't come to school for a few days, and for her, those days had felt empty.
Maybe it was selfish, but she wanted Marc to come back.
And besides, she believed that the best way for him to feel better was to keep moving forward.
Otherwise, he would end up collapsing under the weight of his own mind.
When they arrived in front of their school, Marc couldn't help but think that among everyone there, several people had probably lost someone in the hurricane. Elie had never said any names, but he knew it was impossible that the devastation hadn't reached her surroundings at least once.
So, he tried to keep a low profile.
Elie walked beside him, silent.
From the outside, the two looked like a young couple desperately trying to stay together. But upon closer look, it was clear that the problem wasn't a lovers' quarrel—it was Marc's condition, which looked terrible.
Everyone had noticed that Marc had been absent for a while, and with all the recent events, they all assumed it was because of the disaster. He had left with his usual dark gaze, but still somewhat happy. Seeing him like this now only brought out pity and sadness from others.
Nathanaël joined him later, the same look as the others on his face. He couldn't help but feel bad.
But unlike the others, he knew the real reason behind Marc's state.
And that made him feel even more uneasy.
He didn't know what to say. So when he stopped in front of him, a heavy silence spread across the entire courtyard.
In the end, he simply placed a hand on his shoulder and said:
"Don't worry, Marc. It's not your fault."
Marc didn't lift his head. He clenched his teeth and just kept walking.
There was nothing special about classes that day.
Chris had spent the whole day silently mocking Marc, while his friends followed him as usual.
However, this time, none of them laughed or even openly made fun of him. Even Chris seemed less lively than on other days.
No one really had the heart for it.
Marc knew what each of them was thinking. He knew them all very well.
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.
People at school eventually started calling them the Lonely Trio. For even though they were almost always together, the three of them looked like the living dead, wandering in the footsteps of Marc, the deadest of them all.
Nathanael seemed to be the brightest spark in this gloomy little group, and although Marc seemed ready to die, Nathanael seemed determined to save him. No matter the situation, he kept trying to find a solution.
"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 word. 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.
Suddenly, everything had taken on a much more disturbing turn
"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."
Yet, 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 Myke 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 and 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.
Seeing his expressionless face, Nathanaël sighed.
"Let's go then. Follow me."
The two, then, 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.
It was as if they were walking in circles.
Marc had expected the field to be vast, but seeing himself walking like this made him feel as if he were trapped.
It was really unpleasant. Even though he knew he could simply turn around to go back, it made him feel increasingly uneasy.
The field, however, never changed.
Each time, the stalks of wheat stood tall, rising higher than them and blocking their view. The ground was firm, and walking on it wasn't that troublesome. The problem was that with all that walking, it wasn't just the body that wore down—but the mind as well.
And Marc was almost fed up.
"Are we going to be much longer?"
No answer.
Yet the stalks in front of him kept parting.
Whatever was causing it, it didn't respond—and the silence felt almost threatening.
Marc felt his pulse quicken. He knew his friend would never play this kind of trick at a moment like this.
Whatever was walking ahead of him… one thing was certain…
It wasn't Nathanaël.
Someone was there, stirring the ears of wheat.
Marc kept walking, even though he'd noticed the deception.
The thing in front of him was moving fast—very fast—so much so that he had trouble keeping up. But so as not to arouse its suspicion, he kept walking at its pace.
His heart beating in time with his steps, Marc was now playing a game of cat and mouse with something he didn't know. And given what he was looking for, it could be far more terrifying than he imagined.
However, at this point, it could only lead to answers either way, so he simply kept following.
Suddenly, it disappeared. And it happened so suddenly that Marc jumped.
He stopped for a moment, waiting to see if something would fall on him.
In that vast field, probably lost in the middle of nowhere, Marc was nothing but defenseless prey.
But nothing happened.
For ten minutes, nothing moved around him. Not a single sound, except the wind—whispering like a bad omen.
"Did it realize that I realized?"
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.
"It's...it's him."
The corpse of the field's owner lay there on the ground. His limbs were withered. His eyes were gone. His tongue, out, was being eaten by worms.
"Yuck."
Marc went to vomit a little farther away.
It was the first time he'd seen a corpse up this close and he'd touched it on top of that.
It took him some time to recover from this horrible sight. Lost in the middle of the field, he supposed that the first thing to do was to go home. Except that he had no idea which way he'd come.
The thing he had followed hadn't gone straight at all.
So even turning back now would be pointless.
Nathanaël had Fred's number, but not him.
He tried to locate the phones around him.
"Tss!"
Just as he'd thought, no one.
There wasn't a phone in sight, and to make matters worse, all Marc could see on his map was the field. Even when he zoomed out, nothing else appeared except for the wheat stalks.
This was clearly not normal. He'd figured it out when he'd stumbled across the corpse that must already have been taken far from here.
This corpse wasn't supposed to be here.
There was no doubt that what he was experiencing was supernatural
Marc knew that his curiosity had led him to do things he shouldn't have done. But he looked at the corpse a second time anyway and this time, he looked at it properly.
Its two arms were pointing in two different directions. Both hands, or rather what was left of them, were pointing to two sides as if he wanted to show the way. Marc looked in the direction the left hand was pointing. Of course, he saw nothing but wheat.
"No matter which direction I choose, I'll end up getting lost."
Marc was determined to do battle with this man. If this road led to the man in black, he'd fight to the death.
At least, he'd try.
It was ridiculous to even think that, but at least it gave him the motivation to keep going.
So, after a brief reflection, he followed the direction of the left hand.
Marc moved away from the corpse and began wandering around the field. He had no idea if he was following the right road, but thought he was walking more or less straight. The wheat crunched under his feet. Tension mounted the further he went. His heart was beating faster and his blood pressure was rising. Marc found it harder and harder to walk. His legs wanted to move less and less.
Marc walked with difficulty for 5 minutes before stumbling into a space in which stood a door surrounded by mud. Mud deep enough to swallow him.
Marc looked at the door and it took him no less than thirty seconds to realize that it was the cathedral door.
The door was there, but not the cathedral.
It stood there as if waiting to be opened. Like a portal to another place. If he'd thought it possible one day before these visions he wouldn't be the same man now.
Marc looked at the door, impassive. If he was meant to be anywhere, it was in there. He wondered how to get to her without dirtying his beautiful shoes but he had no choice so he had to walk through the mud.
Marc took his first step into the mud, but at the same time his foot lost all available support. It sank completely, as if there was a hole where the mud had been.
Marc found himself upside down. His feet where the ground was supposed to be, which now became the sky.
His eyes saw a sight never seen before.
The cathedral was there,in the distance, but upside down. It was as if she were on the surface of the ground but in another world upside down, and the only thing separating them from her real world was the ground. Snow fell on the cathedral and the wind seemed to speak.
Marc stopped thinking for this short time, obviously not knowing what to think. His eyes reflected the strange and incredible spectacle unfolding before his eyes.
Marc soon found himself caught up in gravity, which pulled him back down to the ground. He sank back into the mud and found himself in the middle of the field, but not in front of the gate.
"What the hell was that?? Was this really another world???"
Marc had just realized that the possibility of another world had just been proven and that the man in black was surely from that world. This world looked totally different from his own. Totally, foreign.
"I've got to find Nathanaël. He may have fallen into one of these mud puddles."
Marc got to his feet quickly. He looked around to see if he could locate Nathanaël's position.
But unfortunately, all around him, nothing was moving.
"Never mind. I'll have to take a wild guess."
Marc moved in a random direction. He made occasional turns and shouted to see if anyone would answer. But there was no answer. He began seriously to wonder if he wasn't stuck in this field forever.
Suddenly, movement appeared to his right. He watched carefully to see where the noises were coming from.
"Nath?"
Once again, no response.
The thing approaching was moving at the same speed as the one Marc had been following earlier. It wasn't hard to understand that it was the same entity.
If it even was a person...
"Whoever you are, I don't feel much like playing right now."
No matter how impassively he said it, he was stressing. He was shaking like a beginner, unable to control his stance. Trying to stay focused, Marc quickly realized it was impossible for him to keep his cool.
The thing was getting closer and closer, and Marc took up a fighting stance. He'd never been in a fight before, but now was the perfect time. His stance resembled that of Jeet Kune Do.
Marc knew the basics of combat. Whatever martial art he used, he knew how to fight.
The thing sprang up from the tall wheat in front of Marc.
He didn't even take the time to look at what it was. He grabbed its arm and made it turn around. It was an aikido technique he'd learned on his own. The thing's back slammed into the ground, and that's when Marc saw it...
It was a humanoid life-form, but it didn't look much like a human being. Its body was so white you couldn't even call it color. It wore clothes made of white linen that seemed to merge with her body. But the strangest thing was it face. It seemed completely perfect. Her hair was white too, but her eyes had no pupils. Upon closer observation, Marc noticed that there were like points of light in his black eyes. He moved a little closer and saw stars and galaxies, as well as a few black holes. It had a universe in her eyes.
Marc took two steps back in absolute terror.
This thing was clearly from the other world....
He didn't have time to question it when he heard other things moving in the field. This time there were a lot of them.
Marc took one last look at the being on the ground. It had opened its mouth. Even his mouth revealed only complete blackness.
But a word came out of the gaping void.
"Aregis."
The voice wasn't human either. It echoed in Marc's head, and all he could do was hold his head. It sounded so loud he thought it would explode. The pain made him crouch.
"I...mustn't...stay here. They're coming."
Marc moved forward as best he could. The being on the ground grabbed his foot and began to open its mouth again.
Marc gave it a hard kick before starting to run.
"Go to hell."
Marc ran as if his life depended on it. At the same time, his life depended on it.
He didn't know if Nathanaël had come across these things either. One thing was certain: they had to get out of this field.
Across the field, Nathanaël knew he'd already lost Marc.
Not only was he lonely, but he hadn't been able to contact Fred. He was lost in the middle of the field.
He had already tried to turn back, but soon realized it was useless. He was walking in the void, hoping to find his way back. He looked left and right to see if things were starting to move, but Marc's presence seemed to have moved away at the link.
"Damn. I didn't think this place was really haunted. I'll have to find my way back on my ownnnnnnnn...."
Suddenly, Nathanaël was caught in a mud puddle.
His whole body disappeared from the surface. He found himself upside down in a world that didn't seem to be his own. In the short time he was aloft, he saw in the distance what he recognized as the cathedral of his dream. But the journey was too short for him to be sure of what he was getting into.
He plunged back into a mud puddle and found himself back in his own world.
This time, he wasn't standing in the middle of wheat fields, but in front of a door. Nathanaël recognized the door. It was the cathedral door, but the cathedral was clearly not there.
His curiosity led him to open the door, but as he approached it, he was once again swallowed up by the mud. This time, he found himself upside down in front of the cathedral.
A nervous smile appeared on his face.
It did exist, but not in their world.
Nathanaël wanted to deviate his trajectory but suddenly gave up.
Strange beings were watching him. They were so clearly white that you couldn't even call it color. They looked at Nathanaël with starry eyes, and he also noticed strange little wings on their backs. Much smaller than those of the man in black.
Nathanaël interrupted his trajectory and let himself be drawn into the mud puddle. He went out into another corner of the field.
He had no idea where he was, but one thing was certain: he had to get out of the field.
He started to run and noticed quickly that the strange creatures came after him as soon as he emerged from the mud. Nathanaël watched in horror as their arms emerged from the muddy puddle. The mud clung to their white skin like a viscous, sticky liquid.
He was a fast runner and now was the time to put his speed to good use. He ran into the field with no idea of where he was going. His run on the ground didn't last long, as he crossed a mud puddle after ten minutes of running. This time he saw a mountain full of snow. He'd never seen so much. But the point he couldn't miss was that at the top of this mountain was the cathedral.
Nathanaël plunged back into a mud puddle and started running again. There was no time to dwell on what he saw. He had to run and get out of this field.
But again he plunged into a mud puddle. This time, he found himself in a cave and hit his head on the ceiling. As he fell back, he saw someone banging his head in another corner of the cave.
"Marc!?"
The person turned around. It was Marc, all right.
"Ah hi! How are you?"
They didn't have time to say more.
Marc had just seen Nathanaël. That meant he'd started running too so he was relieved.
He plunged back into the cliff and started running again. He had finally lost sight of his pursuers, but still didn't know which way he was running.
"It's really not a great feeling running without knowing where you're going."
Marc realized that if he came out of this field, it would be pure chance.
He kept running until he realized that his opponents were right in front of him. He stopped, turned and was about to run the other way when he heard a familiar voice.
"Shit!!"
"Nath? Is that you?"
"Run you moron!!"
Nathanaël sprang in front of Marc and passed him.
"Oh Oh!"
Nathanaël's pursuers sprang up and started chasing Marc.
"This guy's got no shortage of stamina."
"Obviously, neither do we."
"Did you know that when human beings feel in danger, they start doing things they don't even know they're doing. A kind of survival instinct. "
"Would you shut up and run?!"
Marc knew he sounded a little too relaxed. The reason was simple, he didn't necessarily want to survive. He'd killed millions of people. Normally, the sentence for such a crime was death. He blamed himself. He blamed himself so much. It was as if all the souls he'd killed were clinging to him, not letting him live.
Marc closed his eyes as he ran and began to slow down.
But Nathanaël grabbed his hand.
"Oh no. This is no time to feel guilty. If there's one thing you can do now, it's make amends. And for that you need to survive and not die like a coward."
Nathanaël's words touched Marc to the core.
"Sir, is everything all right?"
"It's Fred. Incredible, we're running in the right direction!"
They began to accelerate. Marc looked behind him.
The strange beings were watching him. They didn't seem to mean them any harm.
They seemed rather desperate....
After a long run, they finally jumped out of the field. They were out of breath and struggling to hold their breath.
Fred came to meet them.
"Are you all right, sir?"
"Yes. It's over. It's finally over."