The Envelope
Mathieu had never attracted attention. Tall, thin, almost frail, he went unnoticed in a crowd. His skin was pale, almost sallow, and his short brown hair, neatly styled and shaved at the sides, gave him an orderly, disciplined look. His light-brown eyes always seemed lost in thought, as if he observed the world from a distance. He was the kind of person you barely noticed—the ordinary man you forgot as soon as you met him.
That morning, when he found the anonymous envelope in his mailbox, he felt a shiver of curiosity mixed with annoyance. Who would write to him without leaving a return address? When he read the note, his heart skipped a beat. “You have 48 hours to kill someone. If you refuse, someone you love will die.”
A wave of cold washed over Mathieu. Of course it was a joke. A grotesque prank. He crumpled the letter with disgust and threw it in the hall trash bin. But the feeling of unease lingered. Who would send such a horror? Why him—an unremarkable man, an office worker with no enemies?
All day he tried to forget the letter. At work he forced himself to focus on his tasks, but the worry kept growing in him, lurking like a shadow in the corner of his mind. That evening he met his girlfriend, Clara, as usual. They’d been together two years. They’d met at an art opening organized by a mutual friend. Clara—radiant, chestnut-haired with sparkling green eyes—had attracted him immediately. In many ways she was his opposite: full of life, extroverted, always curious to try new things. A psychologist by profession, she loved challenges and had a gift for understanding people. She had approached him that night, intrigued by his slightly lost air. They talked all evening, and for the first time in a long while, Mathieu had felt noticed, truly seen.
Clara had helped him come out of his shell, to break the routine that stifled him. She was his anchor, a light in the dullness of his life. In two years they’d built a solid relationship marked by complicity and trust.
The day after he received the letter, Clara did not come home. Worried, Mathieu called her many times, but there was no answer. He contacted her friends and colleagues to no avail. The police were notified, but he couldn’t shake a dull panic wrapping his belly.
Three days later his world collapsed. Clara was found dead, lying on the floor of their apartment, in the living room where they had spent so many peaceful evenings. Her body bore no sign of violence, no struggle—nothing. Just a terrifying serenity, as if she had simply fallen asleep and never woken. The autopsy revealed she had been poisoned with a rare substance, undetectable without a thorough analysis.
When Mathieu received a new envelope a few hours after Clara’s body was discovered, his hands trembled. He opened it with a ritual slowness, throat tight. He did not want to read it, but he had to know.
“You see? I am not joking. Now it’s your turn. Next target: a lone person in the park at midnight. You have 72 hours.”
A cry of rage and pain rose in his throat, but he swallowed it. His mind teetered between disbelief and terror. Clara was dead. Because of him. Because he hadn’t taken that first letter seriously. How could he ever forgive himself?
Guilt mixed with hatred. Who dared toy with his life and torment him like this? And above all, why? As he wrestled with these questions, a darker thought crept in: if he didn’t want to lose another loved one, he would have to obey. The idea of giving in to blackmail was revolting, but the image of Clara lying lifeless haunted him.
Mathieu faced an impossible dilemma. Should he sacrifice his morals, his humanity, to save those he still had? Or should he fight, even if it meant losing everything? He felt trapped in a web of horror whose threads he could not understand. And yet he knew, deep down, that this was only the beginning.
