The Vitruvian Incident

At 3:00 AM on August 6th, 2015, an uncounscious but alive man was carried away by the river and ended up near a farmer's house. The farmer rescued him and managed to get him breathing again, before calling 911 and an ambulance.

The man was carrying a soaked wallet with him containing $13 and his ID, stating that his name was Ethan and he was 23 years old. The ambulance arrived shortly after the police and took him to the nearest hospital for a medcial checkup, where the doctors found countless bruises on his body, along with a almost fully faded drawing on his chest of what is believed to be the "Vitruvian Man", a famous drawing by Leonardo Da Vinci. The man remained in a coma at the hospital for 4 days, until he finally woke up in August 10th. He was shaken and couldn't form a sentence, no matter what the doctors asked, but eventually he calmed down and responded to some questions. The doctors begun with simple questions such as "What is your name?" and "Where do you live?". The man remained a few more days in the hospital so the doctors could keep an eye on his condition, since his body was heavily bruised and he couldn't walk without help. It didn't took long until the media came barging in like hungry hyenas. They desperately tried to get a word with Ethan, but were blocked off by the medical team, until Ethan himself volunteered to tell his story to the media. At this point even the doctors sneaked in to hear it, since Ethan didn't tell anything to them. While he agreed to tell what happened to the media, he said that he would not state where he and his friends lived, since it would be dangerous to reveal that information to the public.

"My name is Ethan and I'm 23 years old. I recently moved in to a small flat with my girlfriend Emma. It isn't much, but it's the best I could get for now, since my job doesn't pay me as much as I would desire. Enma wasn't really happy about leaving as she herself says that it's difficult for her to get confortable in a new house, but thankfully she isn't having that much of a hard time with this one. I work a 8 hour job that is very tiring, so whenever I'm home I'm mostly sleeping or resting, in wich Enma complains a lot, but what can I do. At least I'm bringing food to our table. Luckily, the apartment we are living in isn't much far from where we used to live, so we still keep  close contact to our friends and family. We even have dinner and hang out with our friends once in a while in weekends and holidays. Backstory aside, last weekend my girlfriend and I decided to host the birthday party for our friend Rolland who would turn 26 soon, so we went shopping together in the morning to buy the ingredients for the cake she planned to bake for him. While she went after the ingredients, I waited outside the store and sent text messages to our 3 other friends: Anna, Logan and Sarah. Logan and Anna were together for almost 3 years now, and they are planning to marry soon, while Sarah was still partying hard without a care in the world. Everyone responded a yes to coming for the party except for Sarah, who said she couldn't come to the party beause she was not feeling well enough to go out, probably because of drinking I assumed at the time.

Fast foward 3 days, to August 2nd, Rolland's birthday. My girlfriend opened the door to greet Rolland who arrived before everyone. To kill some time while waiting for Logan and Anna, we played some retro co-op games together, couch gaming at its finest. About 2 hours later they arrived, carrying a birthday gift with them, a brand new smartphone wich Rolland was itching to buy since it's release. We partied like kids. We played videogames, watched movies, played pranks on each other, talked about our school days and then chilled with some drinks for the rest of the night. At about 9:00 PM, one of my neightboors knocked on my door, I opened it and was greeted by an elderly couple with a very displeased look on their faces. "What kind of sick fuckery is this? We are trying to sleep here!" they said. I was a little surprised by that. We partied hard, but we never made that much noise. Just because we partied like kids doesn't mean we ARE kids. I was trying to explain, but I was suddenly interrupted by them. "Look, either you stop this right now, or we are calling the police."

I got really scared at that moment. My girlfrend looked at me with a question mark on her face, while I tried to speak with them. I asked them what was I doing that made them so upset, and the reply I got still lingers in my mind to this day. "What do you mean you don't know what you did? You or your friends are spilling tomato juice on our balcony!"

I took a few seconds to realize, but when I did I was aready shaking. I asked the couple to give me a moment, closed the door and told everyone about what happened. Everyone gathered as me and my girlfriend opened the balcony door, to be greeted by a vision that none of us will ever forget. In the balcony, there was a body of a man with the top of his body hanging from the balcony, bleeding trough the head and dropping blood on the balcony below. Everyone screamed, and my girlfriend hugged me crying with fear. I was at a loss for words and didn't know what to say. "What the fuck happened? Why is this body in my house?" I asked myself. My girlfriend was sobbing, saying that there was a murderer around here, while everyone else were still trying to convince themselves of what they just saw. After some time, I regained my toughs and tought about the situation rationally. The couples were still on my door complaining, but if I moved the body I would leave prints on it, so I had to use gloves. I left the body at the floor and went to apologize to them. They said they would call the police if any single drop fell down in their balcony again, slammed my door and went away. At that time I was hoping they wouldn't recognize the smell of blood and continue to mistake it for tomato juice. We gathered in the living room to think of what we should do. Calling the police would be bad, because the body is here in MY balcony, so we decided to wait until late in the night to trow the body in the river. We didn't think about if it was legal or not, we just wanted to clean of that mess. At about 2:00 AM we decided to put the body in a bag to go trow it at the river nearby, but we soon noticed something strange with the body. I'm no doctor, but I could see that the cause of death was probably blunt force trauma judging by the big wound on his head. Someone hit him with something hard. Rolland and Logan were helping me out with the body while my girlfriend and Anna were still scared to even come near the balcony. As we were ready to put it in the bag, Logan pointed out that there was something strange on his chest. It was a drawing of a naked man with four legs and four arms wich none of us recognized until my girlfriend somehow gathered enough courage to come to the balcony. She's an art fanatic so she instantly recognized it. She said it was the "Vitruvian Man", a pretty famous drawing by Leonardo Da Vinci. I thought it was weird, but didn't pay much attention to it. Eventually we managed to sneak in outside with the body in the bag and trowed it in the river. After that everyone went home to try to forget what just happened, while me and Enma went to sleep, still shaking about the feeling of a murderer being around here.

Nothing strange happened for 3 days, until August 5th. It was a pretty stressful day at work, so when I arrived home at about 8:00 PM I just wanted to jump in bed and hibernate. I opened the door to see my girlfriend in the couch, crying with her phone with her hand. Those last 3 days have been pretty rough for her, since she can't shake off the memory of that day. I was concerned about her mental well being, so I asked what was wrong and how could I help. She was sobbing uncontrollably, screaming "It happened again, it happened again!". I got hit by a sense of dread after hearing what she said. From her phone I could see that she was trying to call the police. I asked if it was another body, and where it was. Still sobbing, she said it was in the elevator. Since it was not in MY house this time, we tried calling the police over and over again, wich only resulted in silence. I was weirded out by that, so I tried calling someone else. Same result, silence. I inspected the internet and phone cables, and just as I tought, someone cut them. I asked my girlfriend and she said she didn't see anyone get inside our house besides me. When I told her that someone cut the cables she hugged me and begged to take her to her parents house, and that our house was no longer safe. I opened the elevator door, and the body was there. This time it was a girl, about 10-13 years I would say. Just as the man from before, she was completely naked with her head bleeding, along with the Vitruvian man drawing on her chest. I felt bad for Enma, so I took her to the car and drove to her parent's house.

After explaining to her parent's everything that happened, they let us stay there until the police did something, since it wouldn't take long for someone to find the body in the elevator. I texted my friends, told them what happened and warned them to take care and tell me if anything like that happens to them. Enma and I pondered for a while, thinking about why did the bodies had the Vitruvian Man drawing on their chests. "As much as I like that drawing and Da Vinci, I never want to see it again!" she said, still sobbing a little from the recent shock.

She quickly slept on the couch, while I was still awake, trying to think of a explanation for what just happened.

Being tired from work, I quickly fell asleep as well, only to wake up to my phone vibrating like crazy. I unlocked the screen to be greeted by various messages from all our friends, even Sarah who wasn't at the party. The all said that they found a body in their houses as well. I was shocked to read that, and while replying to everyone, a dreadful tought came into my mind: "It couldn't be one of us, right?" A dead body appeared at everyone's houses, so we are all possible suspects, but I still didn't know if the bodies in my friends' houses appeared at the same time. For a second I tought about Enma being a potential suspect, since she was the only one who could have cut our cables back at home. But that tought quickly went away, since I trust her a lot and she trusts me back. Besides, she doesn't have the guts to kill a butterfly, let alone a human being. We were all together in the birthday party except for Sarah and yet a body appeared at her house as well. "If the murderer was after us somehow, then why did he kill someone and placed the body in Sarah's house? He probably never saw her!" I tought to myself, trying to rationalize all of this. Suddenly, Enma woke up, asking me what time it was. I looked at my phone and it was 1:00 AM. Enma said she couldn't sleep, that her mind was keeping her awake with terrible toughts. I conforted her, besides beings terrified myself. I couldn't shake the feeling that a crazy murderer was watching us. A feeling that soon became a reality. At about 1:30 AM I was almost falling asleep again when I heard a loud scream. Enma jumped from the couch in shock, hugging me. To be completely honest, I was almost crying myself. I was never this scared in my entire life. We went upstairs to see if her parent's woke up with that scream as well. We opened the door the their room, to find an image that will haunt Enma forever. Her parents were dead. Her father had his legs and arms cut. Her mother was lying on the bed with the same pose as the Vitruvian Man, her husband's arms and legs preciselly implanted on her body, creating an almost perfect representation of Da Vinci's drawing. Enma screamed louder than I ever tought it was possible for a human being, while crying in horror. I told her to not look and pushed her away from the room, only to be greeted by a tall naked man, with stitches on his face, arms and legs. I can't describe his facial features except for the stitches, since my vision was blackened out by the shock and adrenaline. Enma screamed again, as he punched my in the face, making me lose my grip on her. I told her to get the car and escape while I held him, but he quickly noticed our plan and ran after her. I managed to get a hold of him for a few seconds, enough for her to open the garage door and close it shut. Fighting him was useless, as he was relatively muscular and almost twice as tall as me. He kicked me and I fell of the stairs, hitting my head multiple times in the process. I was almost blackening out at that moment, embracing myself for my certain death. I used the last of my strenght and consciousness to get outside and scream for help, wich to my horror didn't work. He approached me while I was down and looked at me in the face and grinned, his stitches bleeding on my face. He took out a marker pen and drew something on my chest. The last thing I remember is hearing him whisper something on my ear, and being trown in the river. I'm sorry if I can't describe him better. I contacted Enma and she is fine, living with her aunt now. As for our friends... Enma and I couldn't get in contact with any of them. She wanted me to attend the funeral of her parent's, but giving my condition it wasn't possible. Please, if anyone out there saw this man, PLEASE contact the police as he is extremelly dangerous."

Following the clues from Ethan's story, the police found and arrested a man with stitches on his face, assuming to be the newly named "Vitruvian Killer". The man was soon found dead on his cell, with his head bleeding and a Vitruvian Man drawing on his chest. Ethan was forced by the police to tell the adress of his apartment flat along with his girlfriend's parents house.

Ethan's friends are still missing and considered potential suspects. During autopsy, the doctors found a writing on the body of Enma's mother. It was written: "Completed drawing No. 7". No more solid evidence was pointing to the whereabouts of the Vitruvian Killer was found.