Hearing the pain and trauma in her tone, Mateo went against his better judgement and offered her a solution, the only one he knew.
"I myself may not have an answer nor a direct solution mum, but I know someone– something who does."
Desperate for answers, Maria decided to ignore her son's cryptic way of speaking and pulled his shirt, asking who had the answers.
"The CODE?" Mateo answered with a tired exhale. "Say that you accept THE CODE."
"The code, is that like some sort of website on the dark web or something. How much do I need to pay to use their services. Is it safe and reliable?"
Amazed by the amount of caution she had despite the faint tremor of trauma passing through her body every now and then, he followed through with his plan, which based on his mother's wide eyed expression, was a success.
"Mateo!! Something weird is happening. I can seesome weird hologram in front of my eyes yet in my mind at the same time. It's asking me to accept some code, what should I do."
With a calm smile and a tone that sounded too smooth for his liking, he said "Go on and accept it", which Maria did, completely ignoring the Terms and Conditions hyperlink.
After all, if she couldn't trust her own son, who else could she trust.
Watching his mother's shifting expression as she surfed through the CODE, Mateo was left feeling a complex mix of emotions.
On one side he was happy about the level of trust placed in him, while on the other side he was worried.
Worried about how his mother's mental state would be affected when she eventually decided to read through the Terms and Conditions of using the CODE.
They weren't really anything serious, plus most of them were created with the safety of it's users in mind.
The only problem came from one line, which just talked about the CODE's purpose.
- For the enemy of life is the undeath, a plague set on corrupting the living and recruiting the dead.
Thus your mission as one of the CODE's is to curb the undead masses, leading to their eventual eradication.
Seeing all the benefits the CODE offered, that single request seemed like something any rational person would accept in a heartbeat, at least to him.
But he knew, no one was perfectly rational- not even him, no matter how hard he tried to appear so.
Many would not accept such a condition, some out of fear of battle, blood and death, while a few like his mum were satisfied with their current life and didn't see a reason to change it.
He accepted the Terms since they were in line with his desires, desires he had since he was 13 as a result of the one sitting in front of him who was busy being awed by the mystical abilities of the CODE.
*****
It was about 6 years ago, when Mateo, then 13 was at his wits end about what to do.
Summer break had just begun and he was bored as hell since he didn't have friends to spend the break with on account of their family moving to Beverly Hills.
He mostly spent the early days of the break lazying on the couch and giving his parents the silent treatment since they refused to buy him video games or get him a high spec phone to play mobile games on, even though they were the ones responsible for the move and his alienation.
He didn't know it then, but that summer would be the beginning of his journey into the world of written fantasy and the birth of a deep desire.
It started with his mum, a cheerful typical housewife who upon seeing her son trail the fine line between respect and disrespect, by treating them like air at times and running errands at others decided to do something about it.
Thus she introduced him to a novel advertised to her on her then favourite social media platform Facebook, something about werewolves which she assumed would be okay for him to read.
Plus in her mind it, came with an added benefit of improving his grammar and vocabulary, a fun way to learn.
How wrong she was.
She had unknowingly introduced her son to the world of deep, hard-core supernatural fantasy love.
A genre most people wouldn't dare to read in public.
The first few chapters were a bit normal for Mateo, the author– with his writing, carefully explained what werewolves were, what they did and how they lived for the sake of the plot and new readers.
Of course as an early teen in the initial stage of puberty, some parts of the Werewolf stood out to him.
The fact that everyone got a fated mate which they got to share their lives with, as well as the super strength and speed they were blessed with made Mateo want to turn into one.
After a few unsuccessful attempts he eventually gave up and decided to branch away from werewolf romance themed books, partly for his sanity's sake and also because he wanted to explore other genres.
From there he grew obsessed with novels, absorbing himself into the worlds of isekai, the growth of systems and the unpredictability of Apocalypses.
Anime soon followed and before long he found himself stealing time out of his sleep period just to finish an extra chapter, two or even a whole arc, much to his mother's dismay– who kept complaining about how much time he spent on the phone.
The irony.
Before the end of the summer break, they got new next-door neighbours, the Whytes, a weird and complicated family.
They eventually managed to warm up to each other, his father, Julian Smith finding a buddy in Mr. Daniel, man of the Whyte household.
His mum, Maria becoming a part of the neighbourhood gossip aunties alongside Jamila and Angel, co-matriachs of the Whyte family.
His little sister, Aliyah finally got the sister figure she wanted in Sara– Jamila's biological child, who also reciprocated the gesture and acted the part of an older sister to perfection, often giving girly advice that would make Mateo scrunch up his face in disgust.
Mateo himself also got a partner in crime and bestfriend in the form of Leone Whyte, who was also a firm believer in the world of fantasy and the supernatural.
The only one who could be said to have been left out was Wilson, the Smith family's first child, but he spent most of his time at the gym, training to join the army so he had some gym bros.
The mismatch of Whyte and Smith grew so close that over the years they resembled one big family, to the point of even breaking down the wall dividing their houses and co-hosting events.