CRYPTIC | completed

07

Chapter 07 - MADNESS

~

"What did the pathologists find? Did the man have a marking, too?"

"A dot," Daxton said, eyes fixed on the autopsy report. "On his neck, the left side. They thought it was just a scar or dried blood before they looked closer."

I held the bagged stained parchment in my hand. "What about the house? How long did he live in it?"

"According to the records, he was renting it for a week. He was going to leave the day we found him. Evans estimated the time of death at twenty-four to thirty hours ago."

He picked up a photo of one of the coins, holding it close to his eyes to look at details.

"You're positive you made these in your class?"

"Absolutely," I crossed my arms. "I'd recognize them just about anywhere."

"I sent an investigator to ask about them to the teachers. See if anyone was using the rooms excessively outside of class."

"We had to learn coding and worked a lot with computers in that class. Wasn't a fan of the class until we did that coin project."

Daxton merely nodded and went back to examining the files. It was late, so I said a "goodnight" and went upstairs to my room. After a while of tossing and turning, I finally drifted into sleep.

* * *

"I'm never going to use this again, why are we spending so much time on it?" I glared at the black screen of the computer.

The boy next to me laughed. "It might be easier if you turned on the monitor."

"That's the only easy part," I sighed and he laughed.

I looked at his face, but it was blurry. I knew that voice, who was it?

* * *

In the morning, I took the laptop downstairs and opened the documents on Luca to compare them to the files on the floor.

I unlocked the computer and clicked on the file for Luca.

!! Error:_this_file_does_not_exist !!

What the hell is going on? I clicked on it again.

!! Error:_this_file_does_not_exist !!

Daxton entered the room. "What's making you glare so much?"

"It's not opening. The file on Luca isn't opening."

He looked at the error notice on the screen. As he did so, the letters scrambled themselves to make a skeletal face. It glitched and letters scattered towards the screen edge, then stopped and turned back to the skull. The lettered jaw moved with the robotic voice emitting from the laptop.

"You don't have much time left to find me. And I'm losing my patience quickly. Don't solve, we'll kill you. Solve, you will be dead. This is my move. Your turn."

~

<  e n d  c h a p t e r  0 7  >
MADNESS