Rafael Montes

> When you lift the lid of Rafael Montes' coffin, you see a very rotten and black corpse with its mouth open, much more rotten than a normal corpse should be. The symbol on his forehead is slightly visible, but not very detailed, at the bottom of the coffin has a layer of black ooze, leaking from the mouth and eyes of the body...
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**Rafael Montes** was a police officer and resident of Carpazinha whose murder is one of the starting points for The Secret in the Forest. He was found dead at November 11, 2019 inside his car - who showed no signs of forced entry - and with a Spiral Symbol burned on his forehead, on the town highway, near the bar Ape Hangers. In this event, his wife and daughter, Camila Montes and Alice Montes, disappeared without leaving a trace.

Due to similarities with occultism cases, his murder attracted the Order's attention. First, a team of three were sent to the town, the Team Kelvin, and then another of five, which would later be known as the Team H, in order to unravel the circumstances of his death and also the whereabouts of the first team.

## Biography

### Death

Rafael was returning from travel with his wife, Camila, and his daughter, Alice, when he was approached by the Haunteds. Seeing that the bikers seemed interested in the two women, Rafael fought with the criminals, but was stabbed to death. Still interested in the items given by Eva van Gloss and Eric Jour to the Haunteds, Rodolfo, leader of the gang, decided to burn an occultist symbol on Rafael’s forehead to see what could happen. Without an apparent response, the Haunteds simply abandoned his body on the highway. The whereabouts of his wife and daughter were never determined, the most likely possibility being that they were kidnapped to be used as a source of PE. In the "Revealing The Secret in the Forest", Cellbit hinted that we might hear more about the two in the future.

### The Cursed Grave

After his death, Rafael Montes would become an incomplete manifestation of the Dimensions Parasite. For being marked with the Spiral Symbol by Rodolfo, the leader of the Haunteds, his body began to manifest supernatural influences on the Carpazinha Cemetery, where he was buried.

Following a tip from the officer Victor Rott, who reported rumors from the locals about the demonstration in the cemetery, the members of Team H went to the site and found that the grass around Rafael’s grave was dying and assuming a grayish color.

When he dug out Rafael, Joui saw inside the coffin a black body, rotted much more than he should by the time he was dead, with the Symbol on his forehead without many details. From his eyes and mouth came a black ooze, forming a layer at the bottom of the coffin, which began to move and then fell apart with a shot from the member of the Order. Then his body fell apart in Black Ooze. Any remains of his body were destroyed when Cesar and Thiago incinerated the body with gasoline.

The Dimensions Parasite was not able to manifest completely in the body of Rafael Montes, since its manifestation was interrupted by the team. While the Symbol on his forehead was in phase of absorption of Potential Energy, his body was rebuilt from the vitality of the plants around his grave, causing the surrounding ground to become dark and lifeless, as if the transformation was cursing the terrain.

## Trivia

* Raphael Montes (with this difference in spelling) is the name of a Brazilian writer, author of "The Village", about seven demonized beings, associated with the seven sins, that corrupt each one a person, all from the same village, and with them overflowing disgrace, destroy the whole village gradually, until there is nothing left there. Several similarities between its plot and that of The Secret in the Forest have been pointed out, especially after the revelation of the lost city of Holy Cradle and its "guardians".
* Cellbit has already revealed that the similarity of the name of Rafael Montes with Guaxinim's real name is just a coincidence.

## Gallery

Photo of Rafael Montes' forehead marked with the spiral symbol.
## References

1. ↑ Presentation to the "Rafael Montes case" investigation in The Secret in the Forest - Episode 1 (*watch on YouTube* at 28m20s)
2. ↑ "Rafael Montes case" explanation in The Secret in the Forest - Episode 17 (*watch on YouTube* at 31m00s)
3. ↑ The Cursed Grave in The Secret in the Forest - Episode 7 (*watch on YouTube* at 3h31m25s)