"I saw them Julian, I know I saw them. Short little zombies…"
At that moment, Mateo's perception of the world dulled as his visions and dreams of the future started cracking.
He had told himself to believe that he wasn't special, that he wasn't the chosen one, that he was just a regular guy, but the more the days slipped by, the more he unconsciously deluded himself.
He had actually started to believe that maybe, just maybe he was special. Maybe he was the chosen one?
After all, why not?
Now his lofty dreams that he had built up in the clouds came crashing down along with his world.
Unfortunately he wasn't even given time to mourn for the death of his dreams when his parents walked out of the kitchen and saw him standing at the entrance.
"Mateo, what– why are you here? Shouldn't you be in sch–", his father started only to be cut off by his mum who had broken down into tears once again.
"I saw them Mateo, I saw them. Little gray-green zombies. And some horrible purple gas. Please believe Mateo. I'm not crazy, I- I know what I saw."
Signalling his father that he could handle things from here, he walked his mother to the hall, leaving his father behind them.
After all his presence in this conversation was useless.
Making sure she was as comfortable as she could be in the couch, Mateo calmed her down some moreand asked her ti start from the top, encouraging her to stop when the memory became too tough to recount.
"O-Okay. I'll try to remember." she said, before taking a series of deep breaths to psych herself up.
"The last thing I remember doing before all of this weirdness began was watching TV, an action movie if my memory serves me right. I was tired from swimming with the girls earlier in the afternoon so I wasn't able to finish it and so I fell asleep.
The next thing I know, BAM, I'm lying on the floor in some weird tunnel. Oh honey, I felt so normal at first, thinking it was a surprise birthday party but when no one came out for a while, I started to feel scared and I just kept shouting out your dad's name, hoping that he could help me somehow."
Taking a little break to cool her parched throat, Mateo went on with his initial plan for coming home.
"Happy birthday mum. Here are tickets to a spa, so you can go and relax as they melt away all the pain and stress you endured."
"Pfft ha. When did my son learn to talk smooth, this Amber girl sure is working wonders on you. When do we get to meet her?" Maria joked a bit before the trauma set in once more.
"And besides son, there are some forms and pain beyond the physical and emotional that nothing in the universe, not even therapy, can help with, much less massage. Still, thank you. It's the thought that counts."
'Shit. I wonder how painful her death was to be able to say such things. Might have to buy her a memory erase potion if it affects her too much.'
Placing the tickets on the ottoman beside her, she paused to remember which part of the story she had reached.
"Right. After calling for your dad and receiving no response I started pacing about nervously till I found myself in front of a wall of weird purple gas. It was moving, Mateo, and I might have touched it if I hadn't seen what it did to the hem of my pink nightgown. It melted and burned it at the same time."
'Thank God she didn't touch the gas, but is it wrong that I want someone to do so just to see what would happen.' Mateo fed his imagination with negative thoughts.
"Running away from that demonic gas, my path was blocked by some old and weird looking table which had different weapons on it. Looking at all the options available, it was an obvious choice for me to take the spear."
Maria said so matter-of-factly that her son was convinced that there was an interesting part of her life he didn't know about.
"Whoa, mum. You know how to use a spear. Cool. Maybe you could teach me."
Amused by Mateo's reaction, she laughed a bit before bursting his bubble.
"Oh please. Me, use a spear, what for? Who do you think I am, the karate mum? No, I used the spear because it was basically like a metal bat or pipe, and I've used those before."
"Ah, I see." Mateo said, trying hard not to let his disappointment show. "Also, we don't use weapons in karate, just thought you should know that."
"Ah, okay. Now where was I, oh right. So after I took the metal stick, the table and everything on it just started fading, like a magic trick. Ooh, how I wish you were there yo see it, you're always talking about magic and stuff with Leone and Carmen, so I'm sure you would have liked it."
Maria smiled at the thought of seeing her son genuinely happy and excited, something she hadn't seen in a long time due to his decision to live on his own.
"After the cool magic trick, I started running, hoping I could find a way out or something. Instead I found two disgusting abominations. One was all bones and I don't even understand how it was avle to move. The other was basically a limping corpse." She paused for breath, taking in Mateo's lack of expression before continuing.
"I looked around for a third option for a long time but found none and I was forced to choose between the walking bones and the walking corpse since that gas was now directly behind me."
"So which one did you choose."
"The bones of course. You know how I feel about blood, much less dead dwarf-thing blood." Maria said with a disgusted expression. "Besides it's a corpse, it probably smelled horrible."
"Yeah, probably. So what happened next."
"Well I walked up to the bone thing, closed my eyes and started swinging like there was no tomorrow. Eventually I heard it breaking followed by some weird metallic sound, and when I opened my eyes it wasn't moving anymore."
'What sort of first kill is that. And how lucky is she?'
"Okay, cool. What happened next?"
"Well I continued walking some more, found more walking skeletons, swung wildly, heard weird metallic noises and repeat. Before I realised it, there were at least 5 skeletons before me, plus my hands were tired from all the swinging I was doing, so I decided to change the routine a bit."
"Oh no mum. Please tell me you didn't go back to where the smoke was." Mateo begged even though he sort of already knew the answer.
"Well not initially, no. I tried to run past the skeletons and almost succeeded, but one managed to scratch my thigh. Hurt like hell but I still made it through to the other side of the room." Maria's joyless tone made it obvious that there was a big 'but' coming.
"I made it there but there was some weird invisible kind of something blocking my path. I even smashed against it a couple of times hoping I could somehow break it but I didn't even see a single scratch."
"Sorry to hear that. So since the skeletons had probably caught up to you by now, you probably decided to take your chances with the miasma. Am I right?" Mateo ended her story the way he presumed it would conclude.
"Miasma? Is that what that demon gas is called? It sounds so nice and exotic but feels worse than a bee sting?"
"Wait, so you actually ran into the miasma?"
"You sound like I had a choice. I was surrounded on all sides by skeletons, with no visible escape routes. I had to take my chances. Besides, I thought that maybe it was one of those substances that affect only non-living things, and I didn't really mind walking around nude if it meant I got to live." Maria admitted, her fitness level didn't require her ti be embarrassed about her body, but rather proud. Her Latina genetics also helped.
"Ewww mum. Did you really have to add that part. I could sue you for mental trauma you know." Mateo teased which led to Maria's slipper no Jutsu awakening and gracing her son's cheek with its presence once more.
'So much for that 1 point in endurance.'
"Now that I've narrated what happened to me to the best of my ability, tell me Mateo, be honest. Do you know what happened to me? Do your novels mention a reason or a cure for this kind of thing? Am I going mad?" Maria broke down into tears at the end.
"Hey mum, don't cry. Please, you know how I hate seeing your tears. Please mum." Mate tried consoling.
"Why Mateo. Why me. What did I ever do wrong. That miasma. The pain it caused me. I wouldn't even wish that for the most heinous criminal in the world. Why?"
"I may not have an answer mum, but I'm sure I know someone who does."
Desperate for answers, Maria pulled at Mateo's shirt and asked who.
"The CODE?" Mateo answered, "Say that you accept THE CODE."
"What? Why should I say I accept THE CODE, who is th-"
And then there was silence.