THE RUN AND GO : JOSHLER

BONUS : DEMA

Don't make a sound.

Mad Gear tiptoed through headquarters, the soft sand on the trail squishing between his toes.

He passed Renegade, who was busy pouring fresh sand on a trail that lead to the pit. Jack was standing next to him, a closed sack of sand slung over his shoulder.

Sand was crucial. It let you walk noiselessly.

The Clique had robbed so many hardware stores for bags when they had come, but now that it had been over one hundred days, everything was abandoned and up for grabs.

Mad Gear raised two fingers in a casual salute, and Renegade stopped for a moment and nodded in response. He was breathing heavily, his navy blue shirt tightening around his chest.

Jack stood awkwardly, looking down at his feet. He fiddled with the silver Clique chain around his wrist.

Across the silver plaque, DEMA was written over Clique in black permanent marker.

Usually Tyler would've scoffed and shook his head. Jack, who didn't even have a Clique name (besides Jack-fucking-Barakat, if that counted), never quite fit in. He stayed glued to Renegade's side, only comfortable around him and his old buddies Zack and Rian.

Tyler shoved his hands in the pockets of his jumpsuit as he walked on.

He was supposed to be overseeing each squad doing their work, but in all honesty, he didn't feel like it.

Donnie the Catcher and Horseshoe Crab had it under control. Tyler could see them telling their squads—silently in sign language of course—to keep pouring sand all around the pit.

The medics, Mr. Benzedrine and his boyfriend Youngblood, sat on the stage just in case.

Just in case someone made a sound, and they came.

Tyler shuddered. Images of those horrifying alien creatures flashed through his mind.

His anxiety ran wild. Mad Gear had changed. Blurryface was long gone, sure, but there was still something different about him.

The Clique had changed too. All members had to go through even more training than they already did—a different kind of training.

They weren't psychotic murderers anymore. Of course they still wanted to be, but those monsters had forced them to change.

Silent assassins. Kill anything or anyone that made a noise. Sign language. You can't talk. You can't even breathe too loud, or they'll find you.

After they had come, the Clique had been renamed DEMA.

Headquarters was the tower of silence.

It had been one hundred and twenty-one days since those monstrous creatures had come down from space and completely destroyed practically all of civilization.

They were just sleeping, and they had woken up.

The Clique had dedicated themselves to staying alive by staying silent.

All of the rival gang fights and murder missions of the past seemed petty now. This was survival.

Now, their only missions were to go out and kill anyone and everyone that threatened to make a noise before the aliens did.

Keep the tower of silence silent.

And then there was the boy. Clancy.

He was so, so young. Just fourteen years old, and he had already lost his entire family to those monsters.