The Red Nights

Lina was running worryingly through the hallways of the hospital , when she finally reached the room she was almost breathless , however she didn't even rest to catch her breath. She jumped on his neck tears in her eyes " What did it happen? Why are you here ? You have never been injured even once since you started to patrol. " Lina said.

" Come on, I told you it was nothing to worry about. " Jamal tried desperately to calm her " It was just an accident at the factory. Look, it's just some scratches and a little burns on my belly. Nothing more ".

" Jeez, Lina is always too abusive when it's about your body " Natasha said.

" You shut up, Ms.'I don't find any boyfriend so I will hang out with other girls' men' . This hot man here is the one with whom I use to sleep with so it's totally normal for me to be worried ." Lina replied with a condescending tone.

Natasha was fire up like usual when she argued with Lina and she finished with the last word. In fact Lina was the first one who figured out that Natasha was in love with Jamal and even though she never said it to anyone she never miss a chance to tease her with keeping recalling her that she was the one whom Jamal was dating.

" By the way, what were you doing with my man ? Why it's you the one who brought him here? " Lina asked

" Oh well, to tell you the truth..." Jamal couldn't even finish his sentence as Natasha cut him " Exactly what you are thinking now, I bet you are enough smart to guess what a man and a woman are doing alone in a abandoned factory ". As she said that , Lina turned furiously to Jamal " What does it mean Jamie? You're now cheating on me with that not yet developed girl ? " .

" No you're wrong it's not like that..." One more time he couldn't give any explanation. " 'Not yet developed girl' ? If I remember correctly I'm am the one who won the competition of Miss StainFall this year. Don't be mad if Jamal got the neediness to taste a fresher girl than you are " Natasha said with a defying look toward Lina .

Indeed after the catastrophe of two years ago, in order to cheer up the people's moral, Lina , Jamal and Natasha worked together to organize some events and festivities. One of them was the competition of the Miss of the city , few months ago. Furthermore Lina and Natasha made use of it to prove to each other that they were the most beautiful , and even though Lina was older than her, it was Natasha the one who won competition . This win became her principal weapon against Lina as until there she didn't have any.

" Jamie, you better explain yourself otherwise you ..." Lina tried to reply, but Natasha cut her " you what ? All what he gets from you he could have even better from me " . Jamal knew that it was that moment, when they were both speechless , the moment to react quickly. " OK , it's enough. We weren't doing anything bad . Listen, I agreed that Natasha would start helping me out with the daily patrols and today was her first day. It was her who saved Nadine from Edna's furry and the one who carried me here when I foolishly injured myself ".

Lina stayed quiet for a while staring at him, " You sleep at my home tonight and you will tell me all what happened... without lying " she finally said , she turned to Natasha " Thank you for helping my boyfriend " , then she kissed Jamal and left the room. Natasha put a triumphant smile on her face while she was turning to Jamal as it was the first time she won an argument against Lina. Seeing her face Jamal sighed " Three wins in one day , it seems being a great day for you. Anyway it's almost time for the fighting training , if you're done we may go now ".

" You really don't want to talk about what happened in the factory? You even lied to Lina about your wounds "

Jamal smiled " If we want to discuss about it now it will be just a waste of time and we will just end frightening ourselves for nothing. There is only one person person who is able to answer at least the half of our question " . Natasha said " Matteo, right ?" , Jamal nodded " So we will go and act like it's a normal day and after you finish your class we will go together at your house to interrogate him " he paused " and for Lina I'm pretty sure she already figured out that there's something , so it's not like I lied to her when I come back I will tell her the truth " .

Then like it was decided, after they finished all their daily routine, they met up at Natasha's home. Jamal came and knocked on the door, after few seconds Matteo came to open it . " Oh , such a surprise Mr.ActionMan , welcome " he said with a bored tone." Natasha is taking a shower , she will be there soon so please wait for her before you start your interrogatory " he said when they reached the living room. Jamal felt a bit culpable but it couldn't be helped, they had to seek for some answers.

Though he was acting cool since the morning with Natasha, in reality he was a bit scared . For hours and hours he wondering how such a phenomenon could happen , [ they were almost dead, even more than dead , how could they stand up and come stronger again and again? ] he had been thinking. It was even as terrifying as that night from two years ago. The only hope he had was that Natasha was discovered with a new ability which permitted her to get rid of them definitively otherwise they would keep coming .

[ Only supernatural people can handle with supernatural problems] he thought. It was so long since Jamal started protecting the city from various ordinary criminals, but he knew that he was no match for opponents like those monsters who cannot even die. From there he had relied on Natasha for such similar cases , only he could do was to assist her. [ How did I pass from town's Sheriff to Natasha's acolyte? ] he sighed.

They stayed there for five minutes before Natasha came. When Jamal had told her that they would meet up at her house she knows that it would be her chance to catch up for before, however she remembered Lina who accused her to want stealing her man and Matteo who knew love for Jamal and thought that it would be suspicious. Instead she decided to just wear a mini short of pyjama and a sweatshirt.

" You were waiting for me ? " she asked a bit embarrassed. Both Jamal and Matteo nodded. " Well, never mind , have a seat and let's just begin " Jamal started " Firstly Matteo ... what was that? ".

He stayed quiet a little while before he raised his head ," first of all let me introduce myself correctly , I'm Matteo Verdez, Natasha must have told you that I have some abnormal capacities , but you still don't know what, right? ", they nodded " Well , in reality ... I'm a kind of detector ".

As they couldn't reply or rather they couldn't get it , Matteo added some explanation " I can somehow feel supernatural situations or people , that is how I was been able to confirm Natasha's identity ".

" What happened this morning... did you predict it ... can you...?" Jamal asked

" No I'm not able to see in the future, god didn't bless me with such a power " He paused " look , when there would be a storm there are some signs to predict it . My power works with the same concept, I can read through the signs which predicts an upcoming abnormal danger , that is all ".

Jamal thought, then Natasha asked " For the... stuff of this morning how did you know it? What did you see exactly? " . Matteo gazed at her then he turned to Jamal " the day before yesterday in the park, I saw like dead corpses were rising from the earth and they were walking around the people on a black water lake and I felt like they were invincible until a line of fire came to cut them ".

Jamal and Natasha simultaneously looked at each other, " a line of fire ... which cut them? " he whispered. " Yeah I know it may be weird but that actually what I saw , in fact it's through weird visions like it that I could be able to know whether a paranormal danger would happen "

" Yeah don't worry, the fact is that in reality we believe in you, because that is what happened this morning in the patrol " Natasha said, then she started to tell him all what happened in the factory , after she finished Matteo stayed silent . Although he didn't want to rush him Jamal thought it was crucial to know " Do you know or did you get any vision which predicts whether they something like that would come again? " .

Matteo thought then he answered " According to my vision... yes there would come more " . As Jamal asked him to be more precise, he explained " as I told you before, through my vision I'm able to know when something abnormal happen . Even though I cannot obtain the venue or the exact moment it would happen, I'm still able to pick some more details. I remember having seen the awakening of about 23 dead corpses, since you have already eliminated two of them it still left 21 undeads you have to defeat ".

For a moment no one could say a single word as they were shocked. Natasha frowned " 21...?" , Jamal turned to her " How is it? Do you think you can do it ?"

" I don't know " she honestly responded " even though we know having a weapon them , we are still lacking time and information. We don't know how longer could I keep holding the sword, we don't even know they will react to it the last time I took them by surprise. Now they may react more aggressively when I make it appear, and it would be tough since you never taught me how to use a katana "

" Don't you have any clue about why people turned into undeads after they were killed? It was odd that the two guys awakened and Edna didn't , why ?" Jamal asked to Matteo who shook his head " No, like I said it allowed me to know about an upcoming event, not the cause of it "

" How could you be to confirm that Natasha had powers just like you?"

Matteo thought but he did not find any logical response , " Well ... I don't know... somehow I just felt it " . Jamal asked again " Had you known that you could detect abnormal people before you met her " again he just shook his head. [ So he still doesn't know the totality of his power ] Jamal thought. He stared at them, smiled and stood up suddenly , he looked at Natasha " Well , tomorrow we will catch an undead and you , Matteo you will use your power to discover why they turned like that " .

They were both stunned and couldn't reply. " We will what ? Did I hear you well ? We're not even sure being able to defeat them and you want to catch one " Natasha finally said. Matteo stood up " Wait! I told you that I'm not able to do such those things ".

" Calm down and cheer up we will do it, because I believe in you " Jamal said . He was reaching the door to leave when he suddenly stopped " One thing Matteo. How can we be sure such a phenomenon will not appear in the other cities? ". Matteo bowed his head " We are not sure " . Jamal thought, nodded and left the house.