As soon as we got home from the competition, which, by the way, took six hours long, we all headed upstairs to Tanner's room to have a long chat about the news we had just heard: Howard had been dead all week and someone else was Anonymous. But who? That's what we were going to figure out. Also, I was going to show my friends the triangular piece of metal I had found outside the library.
Tanner almost dragged himself up the stairs as we headed to his room. Tanner had been surfing all day, and he was evidently exhausted. I knew Tanner would probably pass out on the bed upstairs if he had the chance, so I was going to have to keep him awake for our conversation. This conversation would be important and it could end with us knowing who Anonymous was or we could figure out who killed Howard. Poor Howard, I thought. He hadn't deserved it.
Sam had to help Tanner up the last few steps and across the hall to his room, but we were finally sitting down in a quiet place.
We were now sitting down in a quiet place, but no one spoke for about five minutes. Shocking, right. It was just too grave a situation, I guess. No one wanted to bring it up, and since that was pretty much the only thing we were going to discuss, nobody spoke a word. Sometimes, one of us would look up and then meet eyes with someone and look down again, but otherwise, no communication occurred between the four of us. After five minutes, I knew I needed to start the conservation. I guess I was the bravest one. Well, that might not exactly be true.
"Okay, so we know Howard's dead, but –" I started, but was abruptly cut off by Gwen.
"How? How could Howard be dead? It doesn't make sense. Who would want to kill him?" Gwen brought up, her facial expression grave, and pitiful for some reason. None of us really liked Howard – especially Sam – but we were all sorry for him.
"I have no idea, Gwen. But, if we want to figure out what happened, we should search on our local news website. Didn't that lady at the competition say it was all over the news?" I asked Tanner directly.
It took a few seconds for Tanner to register what I had said, but he gave an answer, "Yes, she did. But I don't know if she really knew what she was talking about, though.
"Well, that's all we got, so let's do it," I replied. I immediately pulled my laptop out of my bag/purse – whatever you want to call it – and searched up the news website. Once I was on the website, I looked for recent news, and found a whole article about Howard's disappearance and ultimately his murder.
"I found it," I told my friends. I clicked on the news story, and flipped the laptop around so everyone could see. Everyone gathered around my chair, waiting to see the article. I hoped this article was creditable, because if it wasn't, we were going to have to go outside looking for clues. The article popped up and everyone read it.
August 28th – More News On Howard Finchman
When Howard Finchman, a local 15-year-old, disappeared on August 24th, everyone had thought the teen had run away in an attempt to start his own life...or end it. Parents of the missing teen had noticed that their son was missing when he didn't come home one morning from his summer job as a photographer for the Dark Falls Island Newspaper. Howard worked all morning and he usually got back home around 12:00 P.M., but when the clock turned 2:00 P.M., the parents got worried and went looking for him, only to find nothing. They called the police at 4:00 P.M. By this time, Howard had already been dead. The parents thought that Howard had committed suicide. According to the autopsy, Howard died around 10:00 A.M., when he should've been working for the Dark Falls Island Newspaper. Howard's body was found in the woods in the Dark Fall Town around 11:00 P.M. on August 27th. Police have told us that Howard died due to blunt-force trauma. According to the autopsy, Howard was struck on the head several times by an unknown object, and the police have classified Howard's death a homicide due to this. The police have not made any arrests yet but do have two suspects. Workers at the Dark Falls Island Newspaper have told police that Howard was working with them on exposing two people who were illegally sleeping on the beach the morning Howard went missing. Howard had taken a picture of the two and the picture had been on the newspaper by 8:45 P.M., just an hour before Howard was killed. Whoever were on the beach that morning might have been the people to do this. That is all folks and tell the police if you know anything that could be useful.
My friends and I were speechless after reading the article. No one knew what to say. If the article was worthy, than it meant the police thought whoever were on the beach that morning murdered Howard because they didn't want to be caught. Of course, Sam and I hadn't done anything to Howard, but if people found out that Sam and I were on the beach on that morning, we could be arrested.
Just then, I got an e-mail from someone. I opened up my e-mail, closing down the tab with the news website on it, and looked at my new e-mail. I gasped when I saw the e-mail. It was from Anonymous. I just hoped it wasn't threatening.
From: Anonymous
To: Astrid Hoenth and Sam Jones
You poor, poor things. I'm so very sorry, but you guys are going to go down for murdering Howard, even if you didn't do it. Sucks being framed, doesn't it?
"What is it Astrid? Is something wrong," Sam asks, his voice sounding concerned, but I think he already knows the answer.
"I got an e-mail from Anonymous. It has to do with Howard," I said, my eyes glazed as I turned my computer around to my friends. They all gasped when they read it, of course. This was all mayhem. Anonymous couldn't do this to us. We knew that it wasn't Howard, so who could it be? Now, even if Howard had done everything else, which he most likely didn't, this was so out of Howard's league. Anonymous could go to jail for this.
"If someone figures out you guys were on the beach this morning," Gwen said, her face showing horror and sympathy, "you could go to jail. Anonymous has enough proof to frame you two and everyone else already thinks it was the two people on the beach. This is just...horrible."
"Y-yeah, it is horrible," Tanner said groggily, probably ready to pass out.
"Tanner, you must be exhausted, well actually I should say 'you are exhausted', but you should get some rest. We'll wake you up if we find any leads, okay?" I said, my voice hushed and peaceful, so that hopefully Tanner would fall asleep. Within minutes, Tanner had fallen asleep and Sam, Gwen and I could continue trying to solve the mystery of who killed Howard, and who Anonymous was.
"Okay, so we know Anonymous is trying to frame Sam and I, so that most likely means he, she, or it killed Howard. So, with that realization, we now have some information on who Anonymous could be. If we figure out who would want to kill Howard, then they could be suspects of Anonymous," I realized, typing it into a Word Document on my computer, so we could put all the clues together at the end of the mystery.
"Also, Anonymous has to be someone out to get us or someone who is against us because of how they're trying to threaten us," Sam puts in. I typed the piece of information into the Word Document.
"Astrid, did you ever get a glimpse of Anonymous when he, she, or it sent you the scrapbook?" Gwen asked curiously, trying to help out with the mystery too.
"No, not really, but on my way home from the beach, I could sense that someone was following me, and when I turned around I could see a black figure for a split second, but not long enough to tell who it was," I admitted.
"Astrid, Howard was killed around 10:00 A.M., and he took that picture of you guys on the beach that morning, and he most likely sent you that scrapbook. Howard was possibly the one following you," Gwen said, making us all realize that this mystery was going to take a lot of work to solve. If Sam and I weren't getting framed, we probably wouldn't be doing this right now. We needed to figure out who Anonymous was and who killed Howard – probably the same person – so that Sam and I didn't go to jail.
This whole mystery was giving me a headache.
"Guys, we're never going to figure the mystery out like this. We know Anonymous killed Howard, but why? We need to know more about Howard's death, and then we'll know more about Anonymous altogether," I said, stopping the conversation.
"We should probably leave, but before I leave, I have something to show you," I confessed, grabbing the triangular piece of metal out of my purse and showing it to the rest of the group. Sam and Gwen had confused looks on their faces now.
"What is that?" Sam and Gwen queried in unison, as if they were participating in chorus class.
I looked at the piece of metal, then at my friends, and finally spoke, "I found this by the library the other day. It's a triangular piece of metal, well it might not be metal, but that's what I'm calling it until I find out what it is. It has all these symbols and markings on it, and I think they mean something. Also, doesn't it kind of look ancient with all the spheres on it?"
"Yeah, but what if it's dangerous or something? We need to figure out what it is before we go touching it again," Sam intervenes, probably concerned about my being around it for the past week.
"Well, only one way to find out, Sam. Astrid, look it up on your computer. Type in "triangular piece of metal in Dark Falls" and maybe something will come up about it," Gwen stated.
I did what she told me. After scrolling through pages and pages of different websites, we found something after about ten minutes of tedious work. I clicked on a website called Treasure Is Waiting To Be Found because a picture next to its URL depicted the black piece of metal I had found beside the library a week ago. I brought up the website and a huge picture of the triangular piece of metal I'd found showed up with a title above it: The Death Disc.
"This piece of metal is part of a treasure?" Gwen asked, obviously reading the article. I scrolled down, so that the whole article was in view and started reading it to myself, hoping that everyone else was reading too.
The Death Disc
My suspicions have been confirmed. This piece of metal is part of a treasure. It has been classified as an artifact by archaeologists, but none of them knew of its true nature. The artifact is blackish-gray in color, ancient-looking, covered in various symbols, has obsidian-colored spheres protruding from it, has a golden tip, and has a distinct shape, almost like it's a puzzle piece. The artifact has been hidden on the Dark Falls Island for nearly five hundred years. There are many pieces like this one, and they fit together to form a disc, called the Death Disc. It was made by a Conquistador in the 1400's for soldiers to navigate themselves through the ocean waters. The various symbols on the pieces refer to coordinates and can help any lost soldier. But, some of the coordinates on the Death Disc refer to something else: a treasure hidden on the island. When people in Europe learned of this, they traveled to the island. Most of them died out on the seas, but some did eventually make it during the late 1500's and early 1600's. People settled on the island hoping to put the Death Disc together and then find the treasure, but no one did. The Death Disc cursed them all, and most of them were manipulated to do evil things. Others were smart enough not to interfere with the Death Disc after this happened, and murdered everyone who was manipulated. Everyone on the island from 1640 and up until now is presumed to be sane. But, people still search for the Death Disc, and they will eventually be cursed. Watch out!
Everyone stared in awe at the screen after reading the article. I had, in my possession, an ancient artifact that could manipulate people and curse them. I still wanted to research the Death Disc and find out more about, though. For now, it was probably in my best interest to keep it, so I could potentially keep anyone else from finding out about it.
"Whoa!" Sam mouthed, sharing a glance with Gwen and I. That started the conversation.
"Should we even keep that thing?" Gwen asked.
"This might not even be real," Sam pointed out. Sam had a good point, but it definitely wasn't a coincidence that I found the artifact and that someone else was talking about it. This was most likely real, but I didn't know if it cursed people or not. That part of the mystery could just be from medieval folklore, who knew? But this was definitely used by the Conquistadors and they might have hid the pieces all over the island, so that it would ultimately be hard for someone to put it together.
"Look, someone couldn't have made all of this up. The part about the Death Disc navigating the Conquistadors through the ocean was true, but the thing about the curse, and maybe even the treasure, wasn't true. It was probably a story out of folklore or something made up by the Conquistadors so no one would steal it," I said, trying to put some pieces of the mystery together to further my understanding about this whole thing.
"Yeah, you could be right Astrid, but this whole mystery already sounds like a story out of folklore," Sam admitted, probably mentally exhausted by trying to solve three mysteries in one night: Howard's murder, Anonymous, and now the artifact.
"You know, we all need some rest. We'll be up all night if we try solving any our three mysteries. Let's pick up with this tomorrow. Maybe we'll be able to solve it better when we're not mentally drained and tired," I said, suggesting that everyone go home.
Sam, Gwen and I said goodnight to Tanner and then said our farewells to each other. But, as I walked home, I had a bad feeling that someone was following me, the same feeling I felt the morning I got that scrapbook. I should've done something about this when I was closer to my friends, because now I was completely alone on a dark street, and if someone was following me, I wouldn't be able to fight back.
At some point, I became fearful enough that I turned around, but was immediately sprayed in the face with something. It burned really bad and my vision was blurred to the point where I could only see colors faintly. I screamed, but no one heard me. I heard footsteps against the pavement and knew my attacker was running away from me. They would be miles and miles away from here by the time my sight came back, so I sat in a cold, dark alley for nearly an hour, trying to rub pepper spray off my face and eyes, but that was hard when you were crying at the same time. This only blurred my vision even more.
After my vision came back, I noticed that I had gotten a text from someone while I had been in distress. It's probably Anonymous, I thought.
I brought up the text on my phone and angrily read it:
From: Anonymous
To: Astrid Hoenth
What goes around comes around. Don't go around pepper-spraying people if you don't want people going around pepper-spraying you. Also, if you ever try solving the mystery of the Death Disc, I'll come after you again.
I couldn't believe this. This made no sense. Why would Anonymous not want me to solve the mystery of the Death Disc, and how did he know I was doing this in the first place? This was truly freaking me out. I didn't feel safe walking the rest of the way home. I texted Sam to come get me, and I texted my parents saying I was at Gwen's house. Hopefully, Anonymous wouldn't follow me to Sam's house.
It took ten minutes for Sam to come get me, but I was grateful when Sam took me in his arms and kissed me on the forehead. I told Sam everything and we walked to his house.
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