HIDDEN

Chapter 25

Mia was sitting at the backseat with Dale as Nathan drove her home.

Roxanne, whom was at the front seat, saw her through the centre mirror. Mia was looking rather glum.

"Atleast nothing else attacked your friend as you followed her back home", Roxanne said to Mia, trying to lighten up the mood.

"Oh... yeah— nothing happened", Mia replied. Her mind still wasn't there as she was deep in thought.

Roxanne noticed and continued talking, "You know we had to erase her memory of the incident. She could have been put in more danger if she knew about us. Nobody must know."

That phrase 'Nobody must know' rang in the back of Mia's mind as she came back from her thoughts.

"It's not like I feel bad that Amanda doesn't know. It took so much out of me to lie to her face", Mia spoke up, "It's not like she forgot who I was or anything, it's just... I — feel like that teras... came there for me."

"You're that bad of a liar, huh....Oh, and it definitely came there for you", Nathan said blankly like he was stating the obvious.

"Nathan", Roxanne called out in a low tone in such a manner like 'he shouldn't have said it like that'.

"Whaat? If not for Dale, we wouldn't even know they were being attacked", he whispered back but Mia could still hear them.

She looked at Dale a bit surprised but he just looked out the window.

"It did look like it came for you though", Roxanne said aloud to Mia, "But, can you tell me how you and your friends got in that situation."

Mia thought then spoke, "Umm, I was running late and needed to catch the bus, so I left Amanda on the bench she was sitting on so I would be early— I kind of left abruptly though. After awhile as I was about to buy bus tickets, I heard a short-lived scream that sounded like her voice. I went to check out the area in which I heard the scream from. Then something weird happened... I thought I saw her pass in front of me but when I looked up to check, she was gone. Then, I think I saw her entering that alley.... Now that I think about it, I doubt it was her but it really did move like her. Maybe it was some sort of illusion...."

"No", Nathan interrupted in a serious tone, "If it could use illusions, the tendency of it seeing through my trick would have been higher but it didn't.... The only other option is mimicry."

"Mimicry? What's that", Mia asked.

"Atleast that's what I call it.... Hmmm, let me put it in a way you'll understand.... When a teras that has this ability, watch the actions of a body for a particular amount of time, it can project an image of the same action the original body has done, anywhere else. Kind of shows a projection of a mimicked action of the body under observation. Though, it can't make the projection talk or mimic what the original body has already said.... While with illusions, the illusionist can make any body from anywhere appear, speak and do different actions. It mustn't be something he/she has seen", he explained.

"Wait, does that mean that the teras has been observing me and Amanda all this time?", Mia asked with a chill down her spine on realizing that.

"Depends. How clear was the image of your friend and how long did it last?"

"Umm— the image was very blurry, I guess, I couldn't get a good look at it. And, um, I think when I saw it, it was only for like very few seconds."

"Hmm– if I were to guess, it should have watched you for like 30 minutes, at best."

Mia was scared. She just realized that something had been watching her and she hadn't noticed anything. She quickly came upon the assumption that the old life she used to live had gone. But it didn't make sense. Why did she discover about this now and not long ago like the others? Why is she now encountering teras when she had never seen anything like that previously? Many questions ran through her mind but they all had something in common— 'none of them had answers'. Upon much thought, she came to a decision.
"...join..."