Presents from Afar (1)

[24th April 2021, Today the rival of hundreds of business tycoons, Mr. Robert died an unnatural death on a business trip. The police department continues further investigation in secret.]

Interesting... 

An unnatural murder of such a famous personality alongside a hidden investigation, a coincidence? 

"Probably."

A Popular Person died in our city. Somehow that was the most unique thing that we can experience in our everyday lives.

It did not take me long to read the article and soon I scrolled past it.

I did not know this person who had died nor was I interested in his life yet I still read about it.

The news article was completely exaggerating things for the reactions of the public. Also death caused by an illness succumbing to the old body was certainly not an unnatural death. 

It was fascinating. We lived in a time where information could travel past lands and seas within a span of seconds. 

A world that had favoured the people with knowledge throughout its history, was now in an era with abundant knowledge. 

Knowledge, whether fake or not, would still be deemed credible as long as it reaped the interests of others. 

[A man strangled by a levitating wire in the subway! Real or Fake check it out now!]. 

Too fictional to be true, too obvious to be a lie. I stumbled upon this article. It was impossible to happen but my previous thoughts roused my curiosity up so I gave it a small peek. 

The article was about an incident that took place today with a video included. 

I was reading it with only a slight hint of interest so I didn't even notice when my eyes started closing, before I knew it my vision went black and I comfortably drowned in my unconsciousness.

"Wake up Shade! It may be your school's day off but you can't sleep till noon." I heard my sister's loud voice and the sound of knocking on my door, this forced my dream to an untimely end. 

"What was I dreaming about again?" I muttered to myself. 

It happened again, I dreamt about something and forgot. 

For a few days I was having rather engrossing dreams, not filled with action and adventures or a group of beauties attracted to me but they felt grey and mysterious. 

Man... I really want to continue it. 

I saw my phone right beside me turned on with time showing 7:03 a.m. and -

[Deleted Article]

I sighed after realising the truth and opened my door. 

"Speak." I said with an uninterested face.

"Here" Saying that she handed me an unopened letter.

I looked at the letter for a few seconds and then back at her as if asking what it was for.

"A letter came to your name yesterday but I forgot to give it to you."

"Are you serious?"

"I already handed it to you so don't complain!" She yelled and left. 

I couldn't help but think, she stole a letter that came for me yesterday and disturbed my sleep this morning just to inform me about her yesterday's theft? 

I smiled to suppress my anger and slowly closed my door. 

She may be a genius at being annoying. 

I opened the letter after trying to guess who could have sent me.

An unexpected letter to my name was a rare occurrence, it could either be from the committee or an exam's result I forgot about. 

I read the letter in full curiosity, the letter came from one of my closest or should I say one of my few friends, Camille, who also used to be my neighbour.

Before my family moved our families were really close so I excitedly opened the letter to read from her.

The letter was fairly long but all I understood in that long letter was -

"Chandler died in an accident four days ago..."

Ta.. I.. WHAT?! 

An event I never could have been ready to face in my entire life had suddenly struck me. 

I don't know what expression I was making when I read the letter but I was sure it was a grim one. 

My heartbeat was almost audible to my ears and I completely blanked out. 

It took me a minute to get back to my senses and gather the courage to read the rest of the letter. 

Chandler was Camille's older brother and the person closest to me. I admired him, I respected him and most importantly I followed him…

I sat on my bed and lied down facing the ceiling. 

I didn't want to read any further but after a few seconds I continued. 

To summarise the full letter, it read that four days ago Chandler died in an accident and before dying he had prepared some gifts for my birthday, which he couldn't send. 

Now his family wanted me to receive these unsent presents as his last remaining will. 

I had a weird unexplainable feeling about this letter. 

Even if my mind was disturbed I didn't want to waste more time so later that day I went to Chandler's house.

The journey itself wasn't too short but currently I had no grasp of time. I had never even thought about Chandler's death, especially for it to happen this soon. 

He was a person who excelled in every field of life, someone whose successful future was absolutely guaranteed. 

Chandler was my role model and the only person I trusted. 

This was the first time in a while I was overwhelmed by my own emotions, and the time I spent over years with Chandler flashed before my eyes in seconds as my destination came closer by each second. 

Before I knew it I was already standing in front of Chandler's house, the travel distance which usually took from around 25-40 minutes was covered before I could wrap my thoughts around the situation. 

Chandler's house was a place that was like a stress relieving spot for me, filled with energy and joy, now looked like a place out of a horror story. 

The more I got close, the more it felt like entering a restricted area. Each step felt like I was about to commit a crime. 

I felt tightness in my chest as I stood in front of the door. I waited for a few seconds as I finally gathered the strength and rang the doorbell before any other unwanted thought came to my mind. 

The one who opened the door was Camille. Camille had always been a cheerful girl with a joyful personality, unfortunately that wasn't the case for today. 

As the door slowly opened I saw her face dyed in a gloomy expression, her sight looking down and red eyes clearly indicating she had been crying before my arrival. 

I wasn't the only person who couldn't handle the dreaded news, even after four days she was looking pale and tired but the moment Camille saw me, an unpredicted smile formed on her face. 

"Shade! You came!".

"Of course." I replied with a bold voice and somewhat of a forced smile on my face. 

Seeing Camille's reaction I felt a little relieved. 

Their house was currently empty which I had already predicted because of their parents' regular absence but I could easily see the signs that someone visited or was in the place a few minutes or maybe hours before me. 

"Maybe a concerned relative?" I whispered to myself. 

After a short exchange of greetings we started talking about the accident but seeing as she was mentally breaking down by just talking about it, I didn't go into much details.

I silently listened to Camille talk about her situation and vent out her feelings. 

I was close to Camille as a friend but at the same time I felt like a stranger now, I didn't know what I should say that would help her to cheer up and won't tense her even further. 

I tried to soothe her by saying Chandler would be disappointed if we stopped in our lives because of him. Unfortunately, I was not the perfect person for this so I tried to convey whatever filtered feelings that came in my mind.

After talking for a while her mood visually lifted and I left soon after receiving the presents from her. 

When I came here, Camille looked extremely sad and anxious but after our conversation she could at least smile while seeing me off. 

Chandler was at a bus station waiting for his bus when a car hit him, the car later crashed at a street light and the car's driver now has amnesia and cannot elaborate on the scene of the accident anymore.

…

A new hatred was growing in me towards the car drivers who drive carelessly.

I wasn't usually an emotional person but thinking about Chandler made me feel like I missed out on so many things and opportunities. 

I clenched my left fist inside my pocket out of rage.

I felt like punching something with my full force and dumping all of these unnecessary feelings to that inanimate object and completely shattering it. 

On my way home, I was like a mindless ghoul carrying the boxes. 

I was not sad nor in some kind of pain, I felt more empty than grief. As if for the first time I was appreciating the scenery around me.

After returning home I gently placed the presents down. 

There were two boxes wrapped up, I sat down on my bed and opened them. 

The first box that I opened had a few letters, a file and a little box with a bunch of colourful lights flashing through it, which was containing a... black dice? 

A weirdly clean dice without any board or pieces, the dice looked so lustrous as if it was made from a piece of glass whereas it was also unnaturally hard and heavy as if it was made of a metal. 

What is this dice supposed to do? 

I then tried to open the second box but it was locked. 

"Did she forget to give me the key for it?" I didn't think much about it and started reading the letter attached to it -

"Hey Shade, Happy Birthday! 

I hope you like the dice I sent for you, also can you do me a favour? I'm sorry that I'm asking for a favour today but can you help me with an online article I'm writing on. The name is something like - 'How a person's fate is decided before his birth'. If you want a tiny bit of help try reading the biography of the new business tycoon Edward Thompson. 

Well if you still can't find any material just ask people of your age in the biography section, they may know about that book.

Thanks Bud! I may not be free until 3 p.m. but better do it before 4 p.m. by today."

"Ha..haha…"

I could not help but break into a sad laugh.

Without a doubt this was one of Chandler's unnecessary puzzles for me by judging those specific mentions.

I had known him for almost half a decade now and he had always liked giving other people trick questions and tests which would require a lot of thinking. Few people gave it some time and thought while others just simply ignored it, knowing Chandler he just got happy in both cases till he didn't get rejected from the front.

Even after his death he left me another mystery to solve.

I left the second letter for the last and then proceeded to open the file filled with documents. 

At first I thought that it would contain some sort of hint for the task mentioned in the letter. Chandler always liked to give small hints separately to guide the solver to the right path. 

But my thoughts changed as soon as I read the contents of the documents. The documents had articles and stories of disturbing topics like - commotion caused by late arrival of recent public transport, dissociative amnesia disorder and vehicular manslaughter.

Is this a prank from Chandler to stop thinking about clichés? Or maybe information that would later be required? 

I don't know.

Since I couldn't figure it out with this much information I moved on to read the second letter which was the last accessible item left among the gifts. 

"20th April, 2021.

4:00 p.m.

Hello Shade, the dice you received is a hidden item, lock it somewhere and make sure nobody touches it. My gift to you would not be a relaxing one to you. 

Sorry and all the best, Shade."

20th April, it hurts me to think he made all of this a day before his death. 

Hide that dice? Is this supposed to be a hint? 

I wanted to solve his last puzzle but there were many problems.

Now am I supposed to wait for next month so that I can solve it? Or maybe he didn't complete the puzzles for the test? 

I laid down on my bed and closed my eyes.

I was still calm but I still wanted more peace. I tried to slowly fall asleep and forget about the day and wake up in a few minutes, accepting all of this as normal but soon I jumped out of my bed when I connected something ominous in my head. 

"How did I miss that!" I screamed when I realised something and looked at the letter as if it was a ghost... No, as if it was from a ghost! 

I couldn't lay down calmly on my bed anymore, since I realised a very disturbing thing. It should be a minor mistake from Chandler's part or maybe I was misunderstanding something. 

I grabbed the letters and stared at it with a complex feeling, was it a shock? Disgust? Or just fear? It was not even possible for me to distinguish them now. 

20th April... 

The answer to why that day's mention shook me up was because if I took Camille's words to estimate the time when Chandler died, it would be four days ago at around 4:00 p.m.

It was obvious right? After all, according to the letter from morning, Chandler died 4 days ago which was the 21st of April but since Noelle handed me the letter a day after it arrived, which was today then... 

Chandler died on 20th April, 4:00 p.m.... The exact time mentioned in the letter. 

Chandler's bus was late in time, so he should be there for a while when the car-

"WAIT! No!" I turned my eyes from the letter to documents and took out the articles in a hurry. 

Vehicular Manslaughter, Late arrival of public transport and Amnesia... these are all terms which can be related to Chandler's death. I was a mindless idiot to miss this! 

Perhaps because of the disturbance in my mind or because I had not actually looked at the documents seriously but I overlooked it when it was in plain sight. 

It's not a coincidence anymore if what I'm thinking is right then -

"Chandler knew about how and when he would die." I said these words slowly. 

Then the hints from the first letter "3-4 p.m." that's the time I have to go to a library.

It was currently 3:23 p.m. so I threw the letters, file and the dice inside my table's drawer and locked it as I left my house. 

"I hope he is there."

As I said this I felt intense shivers all over my body, I was running late so I didn't pay any attention to it…