The Red Nights - Volume 1 Chapter 11 Matteo's Dream

They gathered in Natasha’s living room waiting for Matteo to open his eyes. They shut down all their activities of the day to know what Matteo discovered. Naturally Jamal and Natasha didn’t forget to recount to Lina all what happened in the morning patrol and their impressions of the odd dark cloud. Lina listened silently to all what they told to her and waited for them to finish before she started to talk .

” It is really worrying the fact that some of those monsters could actually 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, in fact he was only able to think wisely for the best 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 said

” 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 .” Jamal suggested , he turned to Lina ” How about the other cities? Did you get something? ”

She bowed her head and tight her fists ” Their situation has become worse than before , they are now engaged in an open war against the outloutlaws, even though the good side is winning due to the fact that they are more equipped, people are chocked by the turn of the events. They were only normal civilians, 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 ignorant about it. They ensured me that once they died people people didn’t wake up a second time, they took me as a crazy though. ”

” They are such sad news , however I’m feeling relief that they didn’t turn into worse. It’s actually good that it happened only here we have the capacities to fight back ” Jamal said ” 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 ” her eyes became gloomy ” 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 ” I warn you, don’t even think about trying to run away from here , otherwise I promise you will regret it ”

Jamal smiled as he witnessed how much they were loving each other. [ Natasha on the hand want to run away to protect everyone and Lina , on the other hand, cares so much about Natasha she doesn’t want to be far away from her . If it’s not love what is it? ] he thought. Natasha blushed when she saw Jamal’s smile, she felt embarrassed being scolded by Lina like a little girl .

” Anyways we shouldn’t rush out for just some suppositions , we will think about it once we hear Matteo out ” He said ” 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 dare harming the part of your body I prefer the most, I won’t forget it so easily ” ” 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 said

” Who told you I’m jealous? Who could ever be jealous of you? ” Natasha replied

” You are that’s why you’re always between us, you don’t support the idea that I could be happier than you ”

” Oh ! Considering that, I should really leave 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. It was Jamal the first one seeing it , he was staying quiet during all the fight as he didn’t know what to say in order to stop them . When he turned his head he noticed that Matteo was trying to open his eyes, he immediately shouted to the girls to stop because he was about to wake up from his unconsciousness. They came at once around him and quietly waited, few seconds later he finally opened his eyes.

He firstly looked at one to another without saying anything, he was feeling uncomfortable as all eyes were on him. Jamal understood that and told everyone to step back and let him breathe. They did so and Matteo slowly sat forward and faced them.

” What happened? ” He firstly asked.

” We are the ones who should ask this ” Lina said

Jamal slightly pushed her with his elbow and said ” You collapsed while you were trying to… to… it’s better if I just recount you what happened ” . Then he told all what happened since the moment he told him to concentrate on the almost dead man. After he finished, Matteo nodded ” OK I see ”

” So what did really happen, we just told what saw from our point of view. What did you see ? Did you obtain any response? ” Jamal said 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 what he saw .

At the first time he was not sure it would work when Jamal to concentrate his senses on the odd feeling coming out from the body laying on the floor, and he just closed his eyes and tried to do it barely. And even though he was not fully focused, something did really happen, he started to sensed something fleeing slowly from the corpse and at 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 man’s body, from there all what he did was instinctive . As he focused more the sensation he was feeling fleeing from the body took within his mind the shape of a little thick dark cloud.

He made it recover his whole body like a second skin and when he sensed that all his body was wrapped by the dark smoke even his head , he started to slowly open his eyes. He found out that the scenery completely changed . He was standing in a square in a city he didn’t recognize, on his left 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 his right hand the American flag . And on his right he could see, far off , many buildings and houses .

He stepped toward the core of the city, while he was walking he noticed that the atmosphere was very sad and lonely he couldn’t see a single person and 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 some few people , some of them were walking along the streets without no direction and the others were sitting here and there completely lost . 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 down. He hung out there for hours before something happened. Along the streets of the city people, who were lifeless and lost before, 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 of 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. He got an idea which was to go up on a high spot in order to get a good view of the situation. So he found a high building , ran toward it and used its fire escape stairs at the extern and reached 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 noticed an odd shadow that passed every where people starting to react , actually it was so fast that he could barely see it. He lasted many minutes trying to find it but at the end he gave up and decided instead to look for the direction everyone was taking which was much easier , after few minutes he already found it .

What he saw surprised him, he quickly went back to the streets and followed the crowd. He reached a little square at the east of the city where the crowd gathered, he quietly stayed as more people continued to come and some minutes later 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 strongly black like a kind of censor , so he just decided that he was actually facing them . The shadow raised his hands up and before the crowd appeared a crow with the body half black and half gray , it flew over the 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 lights onto the crowd, then it flew again and disappeared behind the shadow . At the beginning he thought that there was no effect to that, but few seconds later something happened. He firstly looked carefully at the crowd one more time and he figured out a bit too late that it was composed only by men , before he finished to understand what the crow did, people began to fall on their knees and the transformation started.

Their skins went white and dark veins rose from their chests to their chins. In fact the transformation lasted five minutes , after that they all stood up to face the shadow which after few minutes 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 ran away before the crowd decided to chase him, he ran through the city without knowing what direction he should take when his head back the crowd was still running after however it seemed that 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 , in front of him was the army of undeads and he was pretty sure he was engaged in a war against them. When he started to be scared and even shaking a hand landed on his shoulder and he felt immediately safe . He couldn’t explain correctly 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 in 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 his vision. He looked at one to 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 at the end they would be as terrified as he was, however their reactions proved him that everyone there , was more courageous than he could have imagined. When he looked at Jamal he even thought he saw him smiling, a so fast smile that he assumed that he has been imagining it.