Chapter 11: Matteo's dream
They gathered in Natasha's living room waiting for Matteo to open his eyes. They canceled up all their activities of the day to know what Matteo discovered. Naturally, Jamal and Natasha didn't forget to recount to Lina all that happened in the morning patrol and their impressions of the odd dark cloud. Lina listened silently and attentively to all that they told her and waited for them to finish before she started to talk.
" It is quite worrying the fact that some of those monsters could think logically," she said about the undead who turned out to react wisely compared to the others who just used to go straight into the fight without thinking. " How was his fighting skills? Was he also stronger? "
" Not exactly he was only able to think wisely for the best basic strategy to defeat his opponent in one shot. However, his physical capacities were not so different from the others. To say the truth their strength, speed and reflexes were quite similar " Natasha responded.
" Once he was cornered he was no more difficult to defeat, so I would not say he had any fighting skills " Jamal added.
" The best scenario would be that Matteo learned about how dead guys could turn into such monsters and whether we could do anything to stop this phenomenon ". He suggested, he turned to Lina and asked her, " how about the other cities? Did you get something? ".
She bowed her head and tightened her fists, " their situation has become worse than before, they are now engaged in an open war against the outlaws, even though the good side is winning since they are more equipped, people are shocked by the turn of the events. They were only normal civilians just a few months ago, they are not used to kill each other ".
" When I talk to them about strange phenomenons that could have happened, it seemed that they were completely ignorant about it. They ensured me that once they died people didn't wake up a second time, they took me as a crazy though " she touched the back of her head, " I don't even think took me seriously, they were more interested in finding solutions to the crisis they were in than talking about ridiculous things like this ".
" They are such sad news, however, I can't help feeling relieved that they didn't turn into worse. It's good that it happened only here where we have the capacities to fight back " Jamal said with a forced smile, " now I'm wondering why did that happen only here ".
Natasha turned her head to Matteo, " as he said paranormal phenomenons attract paranormal people, however, the opposite could work as well. It might be because there are people like me and Matteo in this town that those monsters came here specifically " her eyes became gloomy and her voice was low, she brought her knees up to her chest " Maybe if we moved out from here, things would- "
Lina stood up suddenly and shouted " Are you stupid or something else? As if we could tell you to get out just because you're different " she stepped toward her and grabbed her hand angrily, " I warn you, don't even think about trying to run away from here, otherwise I promise you will regret it ".
Jamal smiled uncontrollably, he realized that he had never witnessed such a scene where they were expressing how much they were loving each other before Natasha told. [Natasha on one hand wants to run away to protect everyone and Lina, on the other hand, cares so much about Natasha she doesn't want her to be far away from us. If that's not love, what is it?] he remarked his head.
Natasha blushed when she saw Jamal's smile, she felt embarrassed being scolded like a little girl by Lina.
" Anyways we shouldn't rush out for just some suppositions, we will think about it once we hear Matteo out, " he said to bring down the tension in the room, " so, for now, we just have to wait for him to wake up ".
Lina crossed her arms below her chest " I won't shut up until she apologizes. You realize she even dared to harm the part of your body I prefer the most, I won't forget it so easily, " she tried to rub Jamal's lower part but he quickly pushed her hand away, too embarrassed to let her do. She glared at tried again but Jamal was resisting and while she was trying to force touching him Lina asked Natasha angrily, " what do you have to say for your defense? ".
Natasha stood up, " I already apologized to him and I told you that it was for the mission, I don't even know why have I to justify myself before you ".
" You have to, for the reason that he is my boyfriend, hurting him is like hurting me. It's not my fault if you couldn't find someone, you don't have to be jealous " Lina argued.
" Who told you I'm jealous? Who could ever be jealous of you? " Natasha's face became red. Hard to identify whether she was angry or embarrassed.
Lina was still struggling with Jamal, she had his hands in hers with their fingers intermingled and she pushed him until his back was touching the floor. " You are, that's why you're always between us, you don't support the idea that I could be happier than you ".
" Oh! " Natasha angrily tapped on the floor with her foot, " if that's what you think, I should consider leaving this town, like that you will be happy the both of you ".
•••
They were arguing for almost an hour before Matteo showed signs to wake up and it was Jamal the first one to notice it.
He didn't know what to say or do to stop them so he has just decided to stay quiet during all the fight until they exhaust themselves. At a moment, his attention got caught on his side, he turned his head and noticed that Matteo was trying to open his eyes, he immediately shouted to the girls to stop their quarrel because he was about to wake up from his unconsciousness and they immediately came at once to surround him and quietly waited until he finally opened his eyes a few seconds later.
He firstly looked from one to another without saying anything as if he was trying to recognize their faces. He started to feel uncomfortable with all eyes focus on him and Jamal was rapid to understand that, he told everyone to step back and let him breathe. They did so while Matteo was taking his time to slowly sit forward and face them.
" What happened? " He firstly asked while rubbing his eyes.
" We are the ones who should ask you this " Lina replied to him.
Jamal slightly pushed her with his elbow and responded to him more seriously, " you collapsed while you were trying to... to... it's better if I just recount to you what happened " he said after he tried to find the appropriate words to describe the scene unsuccessfully. He took less time with him than when he told Lina which was comprehensive since there was less to say since the moment he told him to concentrate on the almost dead man. After he finished, Matteo looked as if he was giving it a serious thought and later nodded while saying " OK I see ".
" So what did happen? we just told what saw from our point of view. What did you see? Did you obtain any response? " Jamal finally asked him impatiently.
" More or less, well it was pretty weird so I think it should be better if I recount it as well ". Then he started to narrate all that he saw when he was stuck in that dark cloud.
In the beginning, he honestly said that he was not sure it would work when Jamal told him to concentrate his senses on the odd feeling coming out from the body laying on the floor. He just closed his eyes and tried to do it effortlessly and even though he was not fully focused, something did happen. He started to sense something fleeing slowly from the corpse towards him and as the time passed this sensation became stronger. Subsequently, his body moved automatically and before he realized, his arms were placed in the two sides of the dead man's body, from there all what he did was instinctive. As he focused more, the sensation he was feeling from the body took within his mind the shape of a little thick dark cloud in front of him that coincided with what Jamal and Natasha saw.
He made it cover his whole body like a second skin until he sensed that all his body was wrapped by the dark smoke even his head. He, then, started to slowly open his eyes, he found out that the scenery completely changed. He was, now, standing in a square of a city he didn't recognize, he began to analyze his surrounding and on his left, he saw that there was a wooden sculpture representing a man sitting on an armchair, on his left hand he was holding what it seemed being a parchment and on the right hand the American flag. And when he turned to his right he could see, far off, many buildings, houses, and other constructions.
He stepped toward the core of the city, while he was walking he noticed that the atmosphere was very sad and lonely. For a long while, he couldn't see a single person and when he raised his sight to the sky he saw that it was completely cloudy and obscured. He went on walking until he reached the center of the city, there he finally saw a few people, some of them were walking along the streets without any direction and the others were sitting here and there completely lost, like lifeless.
It seemed that they couldn't see him when he tried to approach them.
As he was walking along the streets the weather became colder and darker, he even once thought that the sky was slowly falling. He hung out there for hours before something happened. Along the streets of the city people, who were lifeless and lost just a few moments ago, started to move. Like they suddenly discovered a reason to go on living, like if they were lost and they found their way.
Matteo, at the first, couldn't determine what was the reason for that sudden excitement, however, he noticed that wherever he passed, people were heading toward the same direction, but he couldn't know where, as the city had too many curves and shortcuts and he didn't want to directly follow them since he didn't know what was waiting for him in the end. He got an idea which was to go up on a high spot to get a better view of the scenery. He put his eyes on the highest building he found, ran toward it, and used its fire escape stairs at the extern to reach the top.
From there he began to observe. At the first sight, besides the people who were suddenly getting on movements, there was nothing strange, however, he soon noticed an odd shadow that was moving through the streets of the city, and wherever that shadow passed people starting to react. It was so fast that he could barely see it. He lasted many minutes trying to find it but in the end, he gave up and decided instead to look for the direction everyone was heading to, which was much easier.
A few minutes later he already found it.
He opened wide surprised by what he saw. He quickly left the rooftop of the building and went back to the streets to follow the crowd. He soon reached a little square in the east of the city where the crowd gathered, he quietly stayed in the side while more people continued to come until some minutes later which was when he assumed that every people from the city was present.
The odd shadow he saw before moved forward them. He couldn't know whether it was facing them or not, as all its body was deeply black like a kind of censorship of its true features, so he just assumed that he was facing them. The shadow raised his hands up and before the eyes of all the people present a crow appeared with the body half black and half gray. It flew over both the shadow and the crowd then stopped just between them.
What happened next ended up to definitely scare Matteo. The crow extended his wings and spread dark rays of lights onto the crowd for a short while before it flew again and just disappeared behind the shadow.
At the beginning, he thought that there was no effect on that, but a few seconds later something happened. He looked carefully at the crowd one more time and that was when he figured out a bit too late that it was composed only by men, before he could have the time to understand what the crow did, people began to fall on their knees and the transformation started.
Their skins went pale and dark veins rose from their chests to their chins until the extremity of their faces and so on until they turned just like the undead Matteo had seen that morning with Jamal and Natasha. The transformation lasted five minutes, after that, they all stood up to face the shadow, the latter just stared at them for a few minutes before it finally reacted. With a move of its hand made them turn to Matteo. Before that, he had assumed that no one could see him, but it turned out that the situation changed.
He started to run away before that mass of undead decided to run after him. He ran through the city without knowing what direction he should go, when he turned his head back the crowd was still chasing him, however, they seemed to have turned back into humans, they were looking totally normal, like normal people
At a moment, they all stopped and the scenery changed again. He saw the shadow standing on a high tour far away from him and in front of him, just at the foot of the tour, was the army of undead and he was pretty sure he was engaged in a war against them. When he felt that the fear started to take over him and that even his body was shaking, he suddenly felt a hand landing on his shoulder which immediately calmed him and he feel safe.
He couldn't explain correctly that feeling or how it was as he didn't even see who was that person behind him what he could only say was that he had the feeling that this person was very strong and he had the power to protect everyone. From that moment he felt like a sun was shining just behind him,spreading warm light on everyone on the battlefield and he was convinced that the situation changed and it was the shadow and his minions the ones who were now afraid.
" And it was at that moment that I wake up,," Matteo said to conclude all that he saw in his vision.
He stared at everyone there in that living room, one after another to determine their reactions which were naturally astonishment and confusion as everyone was trying to interpret his dream.
Before he told them the story he was thinking that in the end they would be as terrified as he was, however,, their reactions proved to him that everyone there,was way more courageous than he could have imagined. When he looked at Jamal he even thought that he saw him smiling, a so fast smile that he assumed that he has been imagining it.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone