NOVPUBSusanna spoke as if lost in her own thoughts. "Jonathan is already gone. Never mention him in front of Joey."
Daniel nodded, piecing together more of the puzzle in his mind.
One thing was for certain, that eerie creature hadn’t made its appearance.
Or perhaps it had, but was lurking in the shadows, waiting.
The night deepened.
While others were wrapped in the embrace of sleep, the black sedan seamlessly melded with the surrounding darkness.
At some unexpected moment, a dense fog rolled in, overwhelming the horizon in a matter of seconds.
Daniel stepped out of the car to relieve himself.
The desert at night was bitterly cold, plunging to well below freezing.
He shivered as the urine he had just released turned to icy shards in an instant.
Peering through the now-impenetrable mist, Daniel felt a sense of unease.
How had the fog set in so suddenly?
The scene before him felt eerily familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it.
He gave his head a light tap, scanning the surroundings.
An odd sensation began to creep into his mind.
It was as if some memories had been sealed away, while new ones had formed.
Bizarre.
Daniel shivered, pulling up his trousers, and turned back towards the car.
With no light shining from within, the vehicle was shrouded in darkness.
He cast an involuntary glance to the back.
"Dad, how can you read without any light?"
In the backseat, a middle-aged man sat, his face obscured by the book he held in his hands. Daniel hesitated.
For he realized that his mental image of the ’father’ before him was incredibly vague.
In fact, he had no distinct recollection of him.
Yet, an undeniable memory assured him that this man was indeed his father.
The man gave no response, engrossed in his book, seamlessly blending into the surrounding darkness.
Daniel didn’t press further, lying down to rest.
The chill of the night caused him to subconsciously pull the blanket over himself.
His mind was preoccupied with planning the next day’s route.
However, at that very moment, the phone in his pocket rang.
Glancing down, he recognized it.
It was the satellite-positioning phone issued by the Investigation Bureau.
Daniel answered the phone, "Hello, who’s this?"
From the other end, Julia’s voice resonated, "It’s me, Julia."
"How are things on your end?" Daniel expressed a touch of surprise, not expecting her call.
"All is well. We’ll be venturing into the heart of the Sahara Desert tomorrow," Julia informed. "You need to be cautious. The investigator from Mauritania reported an increased frequency of supernatural occurrences there recently. Over a hundred people have experienced various hallucinations and subsequently vanished without a trace."
Daniel responded succinctly, "Understood. I’ll be careful."
At that moment, the middle-aged man from the back seat moved to sit beside Daniel.
Still silent, his face remained hidden behind an aged, yellowed book he held.
Daniel cast a glance his way and inquired, "Dad, is something wrong?"
The man offered no response.
Yet, from the phone, Julia suddenly queried, "Who are you talking to?"
"No one, just my dad. Thanks for the heads up; I’ll be careful. I should go now."
"Hold on!" Julia’s voice rose, tinged with urgency.
The faint sound of her increasingly rapid breathing reached Daniel’s ears. "You mean to say... you’re with your father? But... weren’t you an orphan?"
A frown creased Daniel’s brow, a hint of annoyance flitting across his face. "What are you on about? My dad’s right here reading beside me. Luckily I’m not on speaker, or he’d be quite upset with your words. Anyway, that’s it for now. Goodbye."
"Don’t hang up...!" Julia’s voice intensified, but all Daniel heard next were the beep tones signaling the end of the call.
After ending the call, Daniel turned to look at the figure beside him. The middle-aged man remained perfectly still, seated with the chair laid flat. His arms were raised, holding the book closely in front of him, his head leaning forward so that his face was nearly pressed against the pages.
In the absence of any illumination within the car, the dimness was so profound that even discerning one’s own fingers was a challenge, let alone reading a book.
Daniel reached out, intending to take the book from the man’s grasp. "Dad, stop reading. It’s not good for your eyes in this light. We need to get up early tomorrow; best get some sleep now."
However, as Daniel touched the man’s hand, he froze.
It was icy cold and rigid.
The sensation was nothing like that of a living person’s hand – it didn’t even feel human.
Moreover, the man’s grip on the book was ironclad.
No matter how Daniel tried, the book remained immovable, firmly clutched in the man’s hands.
Ding, ding, ding!
The phone rang again, and Daniel pulled his hand back to retrieve it.
Upon answering, Daniel was immediately met with Julia’s frantic voice: "Daniel, you must be experiencing a supernatural phenomenon right now. Hurry, you need to get away from where you are!"
The image of an unidentifiable middle-aged man, persistently reading a book in sheer darkness, was disturbingly unusual.
The man’s posture was unnaturally taut, his hands suspended in the air holding the book.
The stance, exceedingly uncomfortable to behold, had been maintained for an indeterminate length of time.
No ordinary person could sustain such a pose, regardless of their resolve.
The sole alteration to the scene was his movement from the car’s rear row to Daniel’s side, coming disconcertingly close.
This proximity made Daniel exceedingly uneasy, even eliciting a feeling of suffocation.
It wasn’t an emotion one would expect a son to feel toward his father.
Was this man truly his father?
Why did Julia claim he was an orphan?
Daniel felt bewildered, questioning himself for the first time.
Orphan. Father.
Deep in the recesses of his memory, from his earliest conscious moments through elementary, middle, and high school and up to the present day, the image of his father had always been vague.
He’d never truly seen his father’s face clearly.
Observing the middle-aged man before him, and heeding Julia’s urgent pleas from the phone, Daniel became acutely aware that something was amiss.
The bond between a father and son should evoke feelings of love or enmity, not this unsettling unfamiliarity.
Was this man truly his father?
His memories insisted yes, but reason seemed to whisper otherwise.
Daniel refrained from trying to take the book from the man again.
Instead, he gently sat up, cautiously opened the car door, and stepped out.
Moving with deliberate stealth so as not to startle the man, he began to retreat.
Distancing himself from this eerie figure felt like the only sensible option.
Yet now, his greatest quandary was discerning truth from illusion.
Were his memories genuine, or were his logical suspicions valid?
Or perhaps some external force had compromised his recollections?
At this moment, clarity eluded Daniel.
Regardless, his immediate impulse was to distance himself from the situation.
Daniel approached Susanna’s car, tapping softly on the window.
Almost instantly, Susanna bolted upright, demanding cautiously, "Who’s there?"
Recognizing Daniel outside, she hastily unlocked and opened the door.
"Daniel?" she questioned, her voice laced with surprise. "What are you doing here?"
Climbing into the car and shutting the door, Daniel, without any preamble, posed a direct question: "Have you sensed anything?"
Susanna’s unique ability was Malice Detection.
If the man in the other car harbored any ill intentions towards Daniel, she would surely perceive it.
Susanna, initially baffled by his inquiry, shook her head in response. "I haven’t felt anything. What’s going on?"
With a slight furrow in his brow, Daniel pointed towards his car. "Do you know who he is?"
Following his gaze, a shadow of alarm crossed Susanna’s face. "Who? What are you talking about?"
In an instant, a cold chill enveloped Daniel.
Susanna couldn’t see him!
There was undoubtedly something eerie about that man.
He could very well be... a monster.
When had this happened?
When had this figure slipped unnoticed by his side?
When had his memories been tampered with?
Or had he been living with this creature all these years, oblivious to its presence?
Would he have ever come to realize the truth if not for Julia’s call?
A barrage of questions coursed through him, each one sending shivers down his spine.
A sudden realization struck him.
Susanna couldn’t see his ’father’!
Just like he couldn’t see Joey’s younger brother ’Jonathan’!
It all made sense now!
In an epiphanic moment, Daniel understood.
This middle-aged man and Joey’s ’brother’ Jonathan were manifestations of the same monster.
It had the power to alter memories, perhaps only those related to its intended target.
That’s why Joey and the others could see Jonathan, while he couldn’t.
He had no knowledge of Jonathan’s existence to begin with.
Similarly, his ’father’ remained invisible to Susanna, as she had never known the man.
Lifting his head abruptly, Daniel peered through the car window to see that the monster’s posture had shifted again.
Its hands still clutched the book, but the direction had changed from its back facing the window to now directly facing it.
It was as if a pair of eyes were piercing through the book that shielded its face, staring straight at him.
A chill settled in Daniel’s eyes, a rising intent to kill swelling in his heart.
That was close!
He had almost fallen prey to this creature’s trap.
Had it not been for Julia’s unexpected call, he might have perished within this fabricated memory.
This monster had to be eliminated.
