It's Mathéo and Laura's first day back in school since the horrendous incident that almost caused their deaths and got them both hospitalized and they are now mini-celebrities. With the rumors of their assault being school-wide knowledge, they are currently the most talked about gossip in every student's mouth. The gazes on them at lunch is almost palpable as they both go to sit with Aaron and Sara.
"Is she the girl you were with the night you were attacked?" Sara politely asks Mathéo in a whisper, a bit surprised to see the pretty girl take a seat beside him.
"Yes. Her name's Laura," Mathéo maintains the quiet tone while responding. "She's new here and she hasn't really adjusted, so I'm kind of like her guide."
"Guys! I need you to focus on what's actually important at the moment," Aaron cuts off the two's conversation before placing the card the stalker gave him on the center of the table. Not wanting to come off as rude, Laura just sits there silently and watches the exchange. "This is the main problem at hand."
"They're GPS coordinates, aren't they?" Mathéo asks as he picks up the piece of paper and closely examines it. "Can't we just look it up on Google Maps or something?"
"Of course we know that, but it doesn't change the fact it could be a trap. He's tricked us before after all," Sara points out. "For all we know, the stalker could be waiting to ambush us wherever that thing leads to. I don't exactly plan on willingly sacrificing myself for some sort of cult ritual."
"'The stalker', what a cool name. Is it you that thought of it, Aaron?" Mathéo jokes, but his amusement with the matter just annoys Sara and her boyfriend.
"Can't you take anything seriously for once, Mathéo? You should just leave if that's so hard for you," Aaron reprimands him.
"Sorry since you want to be sour about it. What I think we should do is simply act now and worry about the risks later. I'll even do it myself 'cause you two are clearly too scared to." Mathéo pulls out his phone and begins inputting the code into it, and the result he gets baffles him. "Well, if that's not ominous, I don't know what is."
"What is it? What did you find?" Sara asks her latino friend in anticipation.
"This," he says as he turns his phone around to show the others his screen. "It was able to generate the directions to the location, but the address itself doesn't seem to be registered in Google's database. It's like a map to Wonderland."
Mathéo is right. The box where the destination's address should be displayed is just blank, which isn't normally the case for Google. What sort of mysterious place would exist in such a developed country without being formally registered? Things are starting to get even creepier.
"Are you guys really planning on going there?" Laura finally breaks her silence with that question. "It sounds like it'll be risky."
"Of course, we are. The curiosity is too much at this point to just stop halfway," Mathéo answers. "But it'll have to be during the weekend 'cause my parents won't let me out of the house in the evening anymore."
"Are you sure you want to come?" Aaron is a tad concerned by his best friend's rash decision making. "After what happened to you two, I wouldn't blame you if you felt like sitting it out. No one's forcing you to do anything."
"Don't worry about that. I don't feel forced to do anything, I just want to know the mystery that was worth shooting me for."
* * * *
It's midday on Saturday when Laura's front door bell rings as a visitor arrives at her home. It's Mathéo and he has come to pick up his dear friend. As expected, Nathaniel is utterly bemused when he opens the door and sees the teenager standing there, and even more so when the boy tells him that he wants to take his sister somewhere.
"Who do you think you are exactly to take my little sister out? Are you her boyfriend or some sort of fuck boy?" Laura's elder brother questions Mathéo while using his eyes to furtively examine the teen's entire appearance, looking for any glaring red flags. "What do you even plan on doing with her during this 'time out' ? Is it sex or drugs?"
"Nathaniel! Just stop!" Laura cries in embarrassment as she walks into this very awkward interrogation. She understands that he's just trying to be a protective brother and all, but the questions he just asked were more than excessive. "I'm not sneaking off somewhere to go make babies with Mathéo, it's just a day out with friends," she assures her brother with a hug before following her classmate out the door. "I'll be back before evening, I promise."
Mathéo stares at Laura in awe for a moment as he gazes upon the lovely blue apparel she's wearing and her freshly done hair. Her beauty is more accentuated now than he has ever seen. In fact, any random bystander would think she's trying to impress him.
"Sorry for staring, it's just that you kind of took my breath away for a minute there," Mathéo compliments her with his usual charming yet playful laugh, causing the girl's face to redden a little.
The two teens turn around and slowly walk towards the grey Toyota Camry that has been parked in her driveway, where Sara and Aaron are waiting. The vehicle belongs to Rob, but he lent it to his son for the day.
"Thanks for agreeing to join us at the last minute," Mathéo continues the discussion as they approach the car.
"I didn't really have much of a choice, did I? You kept on asking until I said yes," Laura replies before opening the car door and getting into the back seat. "But I'm sorry about Nathaniel's bizarre questions back there. I understand if you're feeling uncomfortable around me right now."
"Not at all. I get that he was just being protective of you. If anything, I would've been shocked if he didn't interrogate me after telling him I was there for you. Now that I think about it, that's a pretty vague statement," Mathéo appeases her worries as he follows her into the back seat and shuts the door. He then comes closer to her ear and whispers, "plus I needed you here 'cause I couldn't handle any more of Aaron and Sara's PDA."
"We heard that !" Sara shouts furiously from her seat in the front.
"It's about time we get going," Aaron cuts into the conversation as he starts the car. "We don't know what we might find there, so it's best we go and return before it gets dark." He keys the coordinates into the vehicle's GPS and drives in the direction it instructs him to.
* * * *
After a long and excruciatingly boring two-hour drive, our characters arrive at the coordinates' location at last, which just so happens to be in the middle of some forest. The four of them exit the car and all they find is plain old disappointment. For as far and wide as their eyes can see, all that is there is endless vegetation. They were expecting to see something extraordinary, or at least somewhat eye-catching or scary, but what they got is quite the opposite. The only thing surprising here is the fact that snakes aren't just crawling around everywhere.
"Are you sure you put in the numbers correctly?" Mathéo asks Aaron, feeling very sceptical about them actually being in the right place. "Maybe you made a mistake somewhere."
"No, that's not it. I'm sure I put it in perfectly," Aaron replies to his friend's question as he takes another look at the card to confirm it. "It could be something hidden. We should probably split up."
The teens then disperse in different directions to search for clues, anything that could be considered out of place in a location like this. Not long after, Laura discovers something that wholly fits that description.
"Hey, guys!" the brunette calls out to them. "I think I just found something that you guys need to see."
The other three quickly rush to where Laura is standing and she shows them the tree in front of her, but it's no ordinary plant. She knocks on the bark with her knuckles and it makes a clanking sound, almost like she's hitting metal. Even more, the shade of green on the leaves look too thick to actually be natural, a bit like dye.
"Maybe there's some form of message engraved in it," Sara suggests as she comes nearer to better examine the synthetic tree. It appears the plant is supposed to be a sapling, thus it isn't tall. Sara takes her time touching different parts of the tree with her hands until she notices an odd branch. "There's something weird about this branch. It moves, like a lever."
She pulls it all the way down and the ground beneath the four teenagers suddenly starts glowing red. There's a sudden burst of bright white light, and by the time it deems, they find themselves in a whole new location. They're in some form of colossal library with dozens of gigantic bookshelves the sizes of small houses lined everywhere. The whole room is painted golden and a giant letter 'Z' has been designed at the top of the wall behind them, resembling a logo or flag. Most shockingly, there's perfect ventilation despite the absence of windows and an air-conditioning system. At the center of the library stands a white cylindrical podium with a book titled 'Jurnal de Evenimente' floating slightly above it.
"What is this place?" Mathéo wonders in absolute amusement as his eyes wander round the room. "Did we just teleport underground or is this like a zegen-generated realm?"
"Do you see that?" Aaron asks the group as he begins to approach the center platform, and the others follow behind him. He carefully takes hold of the book from mid-air and opens it. "It isn't in French. It looks like Spanish, I think. Mathéo, you still speak Spanish, right?"
"Si, hablo español," Mathéo affirms as he takes the book from Aaron and inspects it. "But this isn't Spanish either. I don't even know what language this is. All I can tell is that the title probably means 'event journal', the rest is beyond me."
"It doesn't seem like we can use Google Translate here. There's no service here," Sara mentions as she scrolls through her phone. "Wherever we are right now, it isn't remotely close to any cell tower."
"What do we do now?" Aaron ponders.
"Can I have a look at it?" Laura timidly inserts herself into the conversation and Mathéo hands her the book without protest. She opens to the first page and takes a moment to examine the words. "I think I know what language it is. It looks like Romanian."
"You speak Romanian, don't you?" Mathéo asks the brunette. "I remember you mentioning being born in Bucharest and living there till you turned ten while we were in the hospital, so I assumed you spoke their language."
"Yeah, I speak it. It's been a long time since I last went to Romania and my translation might be a bit shaky, but I still remember most of the language," she admits as she continues going through the page. "Mathéo was right about it being an event log."
"Of what event?" Sara asks her impatiently. Laura reads a few more pages before giving an answer.
"It's written a bit like a diary and its first entry date is from February, 2007," Laura starts. "The writer didn't write his name, but he mentioned being a zegen. He was a member of some group called 'the Zomer' whose members normals," she pauses a little to make sure she didn't offend Mathéo before continuing, "had been killing for almost a millenium out of fear of their power. The Zomer clan was apparently a cult of zegen alchemists, or healers. I can't tell which one it is exactly." Laura flips over to the next page and resumes reading.
"One of the writer's closest friends—Loredana—gave birth to some miracle baby who possessed a unique ability that they believed could revolutionize the zegen race forever. When an organization named 'UDAP' which comprised of high profiled normals found out about this, they orchestrated Loredana's assassination and abducted her child. They also murdered as many Zomer members as they were able to find while they were at it."
The three others all gasp in horror as they hear about such a sadistic and cruel act against their fellow human beings. How disgusting!
"Did he specify what exactly the baby's power was?" Aaron asks Laura inquisitively.
"Yes, but I don't know how to accurately translate it," the brunette answers. "He used the word 'întuneric' to describe it, which generally means darkness and the overall absence of light, but I'm having a hard time understanding most of the things he wrote in that particular paragraph. So, I'm not sure if he had another meaning in mind or something."
Laura's explanation immediately puts a question in everybody's head. Could Aaron actually be the miracle child that the writer talked about? After all, qualifying his ability as 'darkness' would be perfectly suitable.
"What about where they took the child? Is it written there?" Aaron's curiosity is off the roof at this point. He needs to know more about this Loredana and her kidnapped child.
"No," she responds as she scrolls through more of the journal's pages. "The writer didn't mention anything concerning where the baby was hidden."
"Then skip to the end already!" Aaron shouts as he suddenly loses his cool, causing Laura's shyness to instantly kick back in. Nevertheless, she still does as he says and jumps to the final page.
"The last entry was just a few months ago. The writer believed he had finally discovered the whereabouts of the stolen child and he was going to retrieve him, but that's it. That's the last line. There's nothing else after that."
"That can't be it. There has to be some other document here that explains the story better," Aaron tells himself as he hurries over to one of the bookshelves in search of an answer.
His mind is pacing nonstop as he pulls out book after book containing texts in different languages he doesn't understand, and all his friends do is stare at him in awkward silence. After all, what do you tell someone who just found out he may be the kidnapped child of a foreign murder victim and may also be somehow connected to a crazy stalker who has threatened his life more than once? Teenagers aren't exactly equipped to handle situations like this.
"Why are you guys just standing there?! Can't you three lend me a fucking hand?!" Aaron yells at them angrily when the entire room begins to fade away all of a sudden.
He tries to gather as many books as possible before they vanish, but in less than a minute, the four teens are magically returned to the forest and the books in his hands disappear along with the library. Aaron pulls the lever branch that previously teleported them over and over in hope that it would do it again, but alas, it is to no avail.
"No! No! No!" Aaron falls to his knees in frustration and Sara comes to console him by gently hugging him from behind.
It seems these characters have just bitten off more than they can chew with this mystery. I wonder, what will they do next.