Thanatos

Chapter 22

Take heed, o daughter of Months of what is

For I, Thanatos have made a witness of you

Of the land of snows and heritages kept

The jungle of steel and concrete ways

Of the black soil yielding fruits and rocks alike

The look on Dennis' face as he read the letter was a mirror of Megan's when she herself first laid eyes on it. His lips moved silently, his eyes dashing left to right, again and again until it was hard to distinguish if he was at the beginning of the message or the end of it.

Megan had put in a call to the director right after she read the opening statements of the letter. His response was simple, "Bring it in," which she did, and the whole parcel, including the packaging was taken into the lab for analysis.

Unfortunately, three hours later, none of the team had been able to obtain a clue out of what should be so clue-ridden.

But how can this be? Megan wondered.

Thing is, the letter sent to her had been a handwritten one. The flowers that were sent alongside it were obviously arranged by hand too, and had to have been gotten from somewhere. Even the parcel which had been used to package the message to her was delivered to her apartment somehow. Those were clue points which should have held keys - or maybe just one big, or tiny key - to uncovering the mystery that was Thanatos, especially with the extent of the technology at Olympus' disposal.

But there they were.

Dennis had ordered the letter to be scanned and sent to his tablet for him and Megan to peruse while the investigation team worked on the real paper, but neither of them had had any luck so far deciphering the message that was almost becoming an invitation to madness for the duo.

"Do these words strike a chord with you, Miss Months?" the director asked for the umpteenth time in that seating.

"Not since the last time you asked a minute ago, Director," she returned, groaning in the chair opposite his as her eyes began to ache and she massaged her temple gently to assuage the assault.

This makes utterly no sense, Megan thought again.

The words on the page were simple in and of themselves, and were obviously meant for her to understand – the "o daughter of Months" part of the letter was quite clear – but she just couldn't make head or tail of it as a whole no matter how she tried. That had to defeat the purpose of them sending the message to her in the first place.

"Could this be the New Dawn brothers messing with us?" she asked Dennis now. "You know, in retaliation to the capture of Federico and the other operatives."

"No way." He looked very sure in his answer. "While Federico hadn't been forthcoming, the others have been more than helpful. Right now, Olympus is on a global wipeout of ND operations and associates. Those guys aren't going to be having the time to pick up a pen, let alone send a letter for at least the next two years."

To be honest, Megan didn't believe the New Dawn brothers were responsible for the message either. Judging by how the parcel had been so well hidden among her moved boxes, it must have been left around when the apartment was first opened for her belongings. But that was just an assumption since they could as well had arranged the boxes around the parcel to create that illusion in her mind.

However, she remembered the look on Federico's face when she asked him about Thanatos. It was terror, much like hers when she opened the parcel. There was also the fact that none of the ND operatives knew her that well, or at all for that matter. Only Tre and his counterpart had heard her name and they were both dead. Federico and the others who survived the Chihuahua fight were in custody.

There was no just logical way she could see for the New Dawn brothers to have the time or opportunity to arrange such intricate ploy against her.

But there remains the fact that Federico isn't ignorant of Thanatos, the thought came to Megan just then. His reaction at the interrogation told her that much. His words before he fainted made her suspect even more.

Unfortunately, she would rather do anything than face Federico again. Their last face-off still made her break out in a cold sweat whenever she thought about it sometimes.

Don't go looking for trouble that isn't looking for you, Megan, her mind said to her and she agreed. The letter didn't allude to him or the ND after all, just to a random person.

"A person!" Megan's eyes flew open.

"What?" Dennis quirked an eyebrow as he looked up from the tablet in his hands.

"These words, Director," she scooched forward to collect the tablet from him and made a gesture that highlighted said words, "I, Thanatos. They refer to the thought of a singular entity."

Dennis looked at the words a second time. "You're saying Thanatos is one person," he caught on to what she was saying.

"Yes."

"A person who thinks themself the god of death."

"Exactly."

"A person who has the capability to follow up on their thought of being a death god, and the cunning to evade even the high techs of Olympus afterwards."

Now, Megan fell silent. She had been so excited with her discovery that she forgot for a moment what that meant for the situation as a whole. It was bad enough that an organization could be the one behind Thanatos. That such terror was the handwork of one person was unthinkable.

"What do we do now, Director?" she asked, her voice almost a whisper.

"We work, Miss Months," he replied, looking down again at the words on the tablet which had suddenly seemed to take on new meaning. "We work double time, and hope like hell we aren't too far behind our enemy."