When ?

Lina went to Natasha's house to call Matteo. It was early in the morning but she knew that his boyfriend and Natasha were at that time watching the barrier, so there was no danger. She didn't need to knock at the door since she already had the double key of the house, she unlocked the door, opened it, and entered in.

[I should just call him out] she thought however a funnier idea popped up in her mind, she smiled naughtily and went ahead to initiate her joke.

It was one of Lina's codes to never waste any occasion to have fun. And one of her most favorite sources of fun was teasing people around him or whoever they were, whether they were old or young she didn't care, she thought that she didn't have to mind too much since, in the end, they would come to know her to get used to her playful attitude. As a to prove her right, that very trait of personality was one of the reasons people in Stainfall loved her so much, they liked the way she always so cheerful. And her principal victims were Natasha and Jamal and even though she knew sometimes she went too far, she could not help it.

She went up the stairs, quickly found Matteo's room, and quietly sneaked in. Since the light was off she couldn't see correctly however judging by the lump under the sheet on his bed, Lina concluded that he was still sleeping. Her smile extended until revealing her teeth and after she sneaked under the bed-sheet, she whispered, " Hi Matteo boy, time to wake up. It said that at your age young boys have a lot of energy from the morning, want to show me? ".

The light was suddenly turned on. " No need, I'm already up and entirely ready. If you okay as well we shall leave the house at once, " Matteo was standing at the room's entrance with the finger still on the switch.

Lina got rid of the sheet and discovered that what she thought being Matteo was just a heap of pillows. " H-how did you know? " she asked immediately, obviously she was upset that the boy got him so well.

Matteo leaned on the side of the entrance and looked at her with taunting eyes, " yesterday night, Natasha warned me that you were a kind of crazy girl. So I took some precautions ".

" Natasha, that wicked girl, always on the way to mess up my fun, " she said angrily between her teeth.

" Anyway as you can see I'm full of morning energy. So let's go, " Matteo said with a bored tone while passing his two hands behind his neck.

She moved out of the bed and together they left the room. They went down to the living room and Lina stopped the boy to quickly passed by the kitchen to grab some cookies Natasha usually baked and hide in her shove to offer them to Jamal, she caught up with him at the main door and they left the house to head for the city hall, Lina's workplace.

" What kind of work do I have to do? You didn't explain it to me clearly? " Matteo asked when they finally arrived.

Lina went to sit on her chair at the opposite side of the room and laid her hands on her large wooden desk as she said, " well, as I told you, before thinking about a plan I need to know the exact moment they would come ".

" But I already told you that I'm working on it, " Matteo replied with a point of irritation. Suddenly, he realized that it was unusual for him to have such a reaction, he dragged himself into the professional world very early and as such he got used to the constant pressure of work so he normally should be able to stand Lina's persistent request, however, he couldn't understand why was he emotive in his replies.

" I know that but I also know that you will face too many difficulties to figure it out since you don't even know how to use your power. Don't try to deny it, Jamal already explained it to me, " Lina said in a dry tone.

Matteo bowed his head down ashamed, he could hardly find any counter-argument, " It is true that at that time in the factory, Jamal was the one to guide me when I didn't have any idea of what I had to do, " he admitted.

" Yes, that's one of his best qualities, did you notice how handsome he is when he takes his so confident smile? " She looked at Matteo with flames but the latter didn't go her way, he frowned while staring at her as to tell her to pull herself together. She cleared her throat, calmed herself before she became serious again, " today I will do the same thing, so you must listen to me carefully ".

" How do you proceed? " He interrogated her, curious, " previously, we had to use the body of one of the undead but we don't have anything for the moment ".

Lina stood up and walked towards a sofa which was on the left side of the room, " we don't need corpses or anything else. Your mind will be enough, " without taking time to explain more since she could see that Matteo was clearly lost, she simply ordered him to lie on the sofa.

For a moment, Matteo was a bit hesitant, his brain was working at a high speed to try to figure out what she wanted to make him do.

Despite the side of her personality which was a bit too provocative, the general image of Lina he had was quite laudatory. He knew that she was not only smarter than he was but it looked like she could accomplish all the tasks he would be unable to do, even his talent to figure out people's personality just by observing them which he was so proud of was not matching hers. The only thing he had more than her was his abnormal and odd power which she, yet, seemed to understand more than him.

He couldn't sense abnormal sensations spreading from her, but he could somehow feel that she had something special but he couldn't figure out what.

The boy was not able to guess what she was about to do but he still didn't try to discuss or argue, instead he just obeyed quietly. After that Lina knelt next to the sofa, on the side was laying Matteo's head.

" Close your eyes, " she calmly ordered and he obeyed quietly. She laid her hands on the two sides of his head at the level of his temples and she started to massage his head with her thumbs. With a very low voice, she repeated on his ear, " relax... calm down and relax all your mind and body, " until she was sure he was entirely peaceful, then she instructed him, " now you will concentrate at your maximum on what I'm saying. I want you to go deep in your mind and look for the souvenirs of the feeling you sensed from the undead of yesterday ".

From there he started to get a global idea about what she was trying to do, [I see, it looks like a kind of hypnosis] he thought [ it is not acknowledged as a proper scientific method but I read that sometimes it gives some results, is she trying to hypnotize me?]

He conceded that they didn't have any other alternatives, so he made up his mind and decided to give it a try. While Matteo was focusing, Lina continued to whisper in his ear some words to encourage him. Then after a few seconds, she asked him, " Did you find it? ".

He frowned and was a little hesitant to replied, Lina thought it was a good sign as it meant that he was actually seeing something, " Yes, " he finally responded after a short moment with a low almost whispering.

[Great, first part completed. So what should we do now?] she asked to herself. She gave him the impression that she knew what she was doing but the reality was that she improvising for the most parts. She got that idea of using the hypnotic method the night before, she took a dozen of books on the subject and learned as much as she could that same night, she estimated that she knew enough to be able to accomplish the procedure but she wouldn't dare to qualify herself as an expert though.

[OK I got it] she said to herself after she figured out the next step. She took again her low and sweet voice, " you will focus on this sensation until you feel it in your entire body, and at the same time you will try to remember about your dream ".

He nodded slowly and started initiated the second step. Conforming to what she told him, he focused on the odd sensation which, in the beginning, was located within his chest, and tried to spread it along his whole body. It took some time until he began to sense it flowing slowly and continuously. Once he stabilizes the flow he switched to his next task.

In fact, he noticed that it was not as difficult as he had been thinking to focus on both tasks at the same time, for the reason that the first one didn't need too much attention, he would say that it was like turning a valve on and controlling the flow, after that he could work on the other part without no worry.

In the second part, when he tried to remember his dream, a lot of images suddenly overwhelmed his mind, there was so much that it was too difficult to focus on a single one. As he was struggling to contain the flow of his memory drops of sweat began to appear on his forehead, he frowned and clenched. Lina noticed through his face that something was wrong, " What is it? " she asked anxiously.

As he was taking long to respond, she first thought that he was in a trance, seconds passed before he could stutter an answer " images... memories... too much ".

[The information was too much for him when he tried to remember] she quickly deduced while her worries were increasing, [ I have to find an idea. He surely already tried to focus on just one thing but he couldn't due to the overflow of pictures, so what can he do now? ].

Suddenly, Matteo's body started shaking on the sofa and he was even nose bleeding, which made Lina finally break into a panic, " no no no... what the hell did I make him do ". She tried her best to calm him, by holding his arms to retain his shakings and by talking to him to calm his anxiety. She tried, again and again, to convince him to relax but it was like he couldn't hear her anymore, " I have to find something. I cannot let him die. Come on Lina, come on, " she kept repeating herself while her brain was running wild.

However, Matteo did not give her the time for that, his shakings became more violent, Lina was sure that if she couldn't find out a way to calm him, his mind would explode and he would die in the following minutes. Although she knew that, she still couldn't do anything to stop that. Tears started coming out from her eyes when something popped up in her mind, a song, that one of Jamal's sister used to sing whenever some of them would get hurt.

Without thinking too much, she began singing. According to her memories, with this song, Jamal's sister could make the pain disappear regardless of how serious were the wounds or whoever was the wounded. Lina didn't expect to be an as good singer as she was, however, she had the hope that it could affect him. She closed her eyes and sang as her voice was gradually getting louder. It was a sad song talking about kids who were forced to go to war, they weren't even 13 years and were forced to hold guns and go take the lives of other people kids like them.

Lina could not know how a song with such horrible lyrics could make someone feel better by erasing the pain, however, she was really happy to notice that it made its effect. As she kept singing, Matteo gradually stopped shaking. When she finished the song, he was already fully calm, breathless but still quiet. " Thank God," she said while she began wiping out her tears, she felt relieved.

She doubted whether if it was a good idea to continue the process but after thinking for a moment and after she made sure was totally calm she put back her hands on his temples and began to slowly squeeze them, she took her sweet and low voice and said, " good, let the images flow, slowly. I want you to link them with the odd sensation which is actually circulating in your body, can you do it? ".

Matteo didn't respond, however, his nose didn't bleed so Lina supposed that there was no problem and that he was just focused on the task. After three minutes she continued by telling him to try mixing his the memories and the abnormal feeling, to find or rather determined when the army of undead would come.

So she stayed there for a while kneading Matteo's head and waiting for him to wake up. She was so stressed that she checked three times if he was actually breathing. When he finally opened his eyes, he didn't have the time to even recover from his unconsciousness that Lina jumped to his neck and hugged him tightly.

Matteo didn't know how to react, he wasn't used to such demonstration of affection, he thought that at least he should respond to it but when he was about to hug her in return, she suddenly released, pushed herself back to she sit up straight before and looked at him with her famous cunning smile.

" I have just turned you on, haven't I? ".

" We should not drop our guard with you even for a second, huh? " Matteo sighed, even though he knew that this hug wasn't fake or made to tease him since he could see her eyes slightly inflated and the red marks below which indicate that she has been crying.

Lina laughed and a few seconds later she calmed down and took a serious face, " So how was it? Did you find out when they would come? ".

Matteo followed her lead after she took a serious face he responded, " yes, " he paused, " they must come for us the next week ".

Lina remained silent for a while and stared down with a finger on her lips which meant that she was thinking intensively, " honestly I was expecting that we had more time, it will be really tough to settle my plan, " she finally commented, she looked at him and smiled, " for this time we will have to surpass and improve ourselves ".