The thin sheet of paper crinkled in between his fingers as his eyes quickly flitted through its contents. His mouth remained poised in a slight frown, and other than his eyes, his expression remained the same.

"Mar, you need to go to the police," Owen suggested after a few restless seconds, his tone grave.

"I can't. Owen, Evan's dead," I mumbled, my eyes wide, my pursed lips suppressing sobs.

"What?" he questioned, his eyes snapping back to my pained expression.

"The person told me I couldn't, Owen. He killed Evan already, I can't risk anyone else's life," I tried to explain, my breaths becoming ragged as I second-guessed myself: should I have shown the letter to Owen? "Look, I understand if you don't want to help me-"

"That's not it, Mar. I want to help you," he responded, cutting me off.

"But?" I prompted.

"I think going into this blind is a stupid decision. This person knows everything about you - they have all the cards. We're giving them the clear advantage if we don't create some kind of ulterior motive of our own," Owen tried to persuade me as he placed the paper on his desk carefully, and walked up to face me. "You should tell Mason."

"He's got enough on his plate," I protested, tugging on my hair frustratedly. Training my eyes onto Owen's dorm floor, I tried to blink back unsolicited tears. "I don't want to put anyone else in any more danger."

"Okay," Owen conceded, with a heavy sigh. He picked up the paper again, and skimmed over the words once more. "The font is Courier New. It generally depicts rigidity, sadness, dullness, indicating an unattractive, coarse, person. People who use it are generally masculine, plain - a conformist by nature - and are mature. The poems themselves depict an immaturity in thought process, so my best estimate is a twenty-year old male as the perpetrator."

"What about the note itself? I found the reference to the lunar cycle particularly abnormal," I asked, furrowing my eyebrows as I leaned over to read the letter once more myself.

"It signifies a limited knowledge of astronomy," he answered. "No one really mentions the lunar cycle as a way to keep track of time anymore. It might be a religious connotation, but I doubt it. I think it's most likely is an attempt to throw you off."

"There's something else. I saw Evan's body today. He had something engraved into his arm."

"What was it?" he questioned, a crude eagerness lighting up in his eyes.

"It said 'butterfly'," I answered, rubbing my temples in frustration.

"Butterflies can represent a lot of things. Beauty. Rebirth. Change," Owen stated, his eyebrows furrowing together as he thought. "Has anything in your life recently changed drastically?"

"Breaking up with Evan?" I suggested futilely.

"No. It would have to be more recent," Owen told me, shaking his head.

"My birthday?"

"That could be it. Maybe the number twenty is significant to the perpetrator in some way," Owen conceded with uncertainty. "There aren't any prominent superstitions around that number, though."

"What about the actual poems themselves?" I pressed, my eyes falling to the sheet of paper still in his hands.

"I think you'll have better luck with deciphering those," he laughed dryly.

"You're probably right," I agreed. My phone began buzzing as I reached for the papers from Owen's hand. My fingers deftly slipped out the phone from my back pocket, and as I saw the name highlighted across the screen, I sighed deeply. "I should take this."

"Yeah, that's totally fine. I, uh, actually need to go anyways... so...," he trailed off, looking up at me with apprehension.

"Okay, sure," I consented with a forced smile. "Thanks for everything, Owen."

"It's not a problem, Mar. I'm just glad you still trust me," he whispered softly. His gaze shifted to the derelict objects in front of us. "I'll keep the box so that I can test the materials. I'll text you when I get answers."

"Thank you, Owen. You don't understand how much this means to me."

I left his dorm room swiftly after that, anticipation building in the pit of my stomach as I recalled the cryptic messages I had gotten earlier.

It was time to see what this person's classification of "present" truly meant.