MONSTER OF THE UNKNOWN

A SECRET RENDEZ-VOUS WITH THE ASSAILANT

That same night at Aaron's, Sara and him decide to have a little indoors date night since Rob's busy at work. They spend time watching TV and doing some other 'fun' stuff till it gets late. Around 10:30, Sara orders an Uber to come take her home so she can get some rest before school tomorrow, and as Aaron's about to walk her out, his phone starts ringing. Mathéo is calling.

"I'll be right there Sara, I need to answer this," Aaron tells his girlfriend before he picks up the device and accepts the call. "What happened this time Mat-"

"Your friend isn't the one speaking," an eerie unfamiliar voice interrupts him from finishing his question. "Hello, Aaron. Do you remember me?"

"Who the fuck is this?"

"We told you that you'd regret ignoring us," the unknown caller says, but Aaron still has no idea who he is talking with. He doesn't recall ever receiving any threatening warnings, especially not from someone whose voice like he could be the slasher from a Scream movie. "Our messages are never to be overlooked."

'Our messages are never to be overlooked.' That particular line reverberates in the teenage boy's mind and he begins to wonder if the man on the phone is the one that left the creepy note that he found in class. If he is, why is he so interested in Aaron? How is he even calling from Mathéo's phone? The latino isn't usually the careless type.

"Are you calling just because I tore a piece of paper? If that's it, it really wasn't that deep."

"I paid a little visit to that friend of yours, the one that owns this number," the mysterious man continues, completely dismissing Aaron's statement. "I'm sure he can prove to you just how serious we really are."

The call immediately ends and Aaron just stands there bewildered. He doesn't understand a single thing he just heard and he can't tell if he should take that absurd conversation seriously or not. Then, a message suddenly drops in the boy's phone that pulls him out of his daze. He just received a picture from Mathéo's number, and when he looks at it, the shock and horror causes him to let go of the gadget. Brutal can't even begin to describe the inhumane nature of the image. In it, he sees Mathéo laying insentient on a field of grass with his body covered in his own blood.

'Is he dead?' the poor victim's closest friend wonders in horror.

Wait, there's more to the photo. It's an added caption. 'I wonder who I'll visit next. Can you guess?'

Sara hears the sound of the phone suddenly hitting the ground and goes back into Aaron's room from the living room to see what happened. She enters and sees her frightened boyfriend staring at the device on the floor. She helps him pick it up, and as soon as she does, she beholds the picture that triggered his reaction. It horrifies her so much that she has to put her hand over her now wide open mouth.

"Did someone..." Sara gulps before finishing, "kill him?"

"I don't know."

"Who sent it to you?"

"How the fuck am I supposed to know?!" Aaron cusses in agitation as his heart begins to beat faster and faster. "Could he really be dead? Maybe that's why he hasn't been answering his calls."

"We just need to calm down and stop rushing to conclusions. Maybe there's a reasonable explanation behind all of this. I'll just call Lyam and ask him." Sara rushes back to the parlor to collect her phone from her bag and calls Mathéo's big brother. It rings for some seconds before he picks up. "Hey, it's Sara. I just wanted to know if, by any chance, your brother's with you."

"No, but I'm in the hospital," Lyam responds with a very noticeable pain in his tone.

"Why are you in the hospital?" she asks him slowly as her heart sinks from hearing his previous reply.