The Altered.

Chapter XLI.

Miles didn't get much silence on the journey.

The group seemed to rotate every so often. Sometimes he found himself chatting to Lia or Eira, sometimes with Aaron or Percy. It was, he supposed, comforting to have frequent conversations to keep his spirits up and to distract everybody from the length of the journey. That being said, some of the conversations were ones he wished he didn't have to have.

Like the one he was having right now.

"I feel like you hate me," Percy said, tone just as pleasant as it always was.

Miles clenched his jaw, keeping his gaze trained straight ahead. "I don't hate you."

"But I feel like you do."

Miles stared ahead at Aaron and Lia and Eira, who were in a passionate conversation about a movie they'd all seen. "Percy," Miles said. "I can't control your feelings."

"Actually, you kind of act like you hate everybody," Percy said coolly. The boy spoke animatedly, using his able hand for gestures and his expression to demonstrate precisely what kind of mood he was in. Currently, his brows were furrowed, but in a more curious manner rather than anger. "Do you just not like people? Is that it?"

"That's it," Miles said wryly. "People just piss me off. All of them. All people."

"I thought so," Percy said.

"Percy." Miles rubbed his temples. "I didn't mean it. People don't bother me." Percy was an exception, but now wasn't the time to say something like that.

"You really confuse me, man."

"Then don't try to work me out." He didn't wait for Percy to respond - he was well and truly over the conversation already. Miles pulled ahead of Percy, receiving a disappointed pout from the latter, and didn't stop until he was beside Lia again.

Miles gave Lia's shirt a tug. "Your boyfriend needs s someone to talk to."

Lia broke off her conversation with Aaron to turn to Miles, and for a second, she looked confused. Then she glanced back at Percy, who was miserably kicking stones along the road, lagging behind. "Miles, what did you say to him?"

"Nothing!" Miles said, giving Lia a light shove in Percy's direction. "I just didn't want to talk to him anymore."

Lia looked displeased by Miles' response, but the light returned to her eyes when she slowed her pace to fall back beside Percy.

Glad now that the pair of them would be happy enough to chat for a substantial amount of time, Miles took the time to enjoy peace. Aaron and Eira were still talking, and thanks to the uneven amount of group members, Miles was left without a companion for the time being.

Which he'd no objection to.

Miles allowed his eyes to wander. The group had been walking for about an hour, and in that time the scenery had changed greatly. They'd moved from the ghost town - as Bri had called it - within half an hour, and now they were approaching the suburbs that surrounded the city. It couldn't be long before they started seeing Altered out and about; these places were normally alive with people on any regular day.

The houses here felt familiar; nothing like the ghost town. These houses had proper gates secured with handprint recognition - some of the other houses just had passcodes - and all of the houses on any given street were typically identical. The only thing to tell them apart would be the yards, perhaps, or at least the numbers on mailboxes. When Miles was younger, the similarities between everything used to bother him, but now it felt orderly and familiar.

It might as well have been night, with how dark the sky was. The sun was hidden between black clouds, and thunder had been rolling nearer and nearer for the past fifteen minutes. Miles could only silently beg that the storm would hold off just for another half an hour so that the group could make it to the city without rain to complicate things even more.

"Guys," Lia hissed from behind Miles. He turned to see her dragging Percy off the road and onto the sidewalk, urging everybody else to follow her. Miles quickly saw why - near the end of the road, an Altered was walking in repetitive loops outside a house. It reminded Miles of how birds circled their prey, and that thought was particularly disturbing.

"There must be somebody in that house that the Altered wants," Miles said as he moved off the road and onto the sidewalk. Lia was crouching, backpack open, getting out the knives.

"We can't worry about them," Lia said. When Miles opened his mouth to say something else she added, "we can use it to our advantage. If the Altered is distracted, we can hopefully slip past it. It's on the other side of the road, anyway."

She passed Miles a knife, coverless, and he took it. Lia continued, "I'm more concerned about that fact that where there's one Altered, there's bound to me more. I'd say this is where we'll start seeing more of them."

Aaron made a small nervous noise.

Percy said matter-of-factly, "We're brighter than they are while they're in this state. We can outsmart them if we have to. I mean, ideally we don't get close to them in the first place. But if we do, I say we split up."

"What?" blurted Lia and Miles at once.

Percy lifted his hand. "Geez, sorry. But it's only logical. If we split up, they won't know who to follow and it'll confuse them for a while. If we stick together, we'll be making it too easy for them."

"That makes sense," said Aaron, and for some reason this annoyed Miles.

"But there's safety in numbers!" Miles said. "If we split up, we'll lose one another, and we'll all be in danger."

"No," Percy said. "In a situation when we're being chased, there's no safety in numbers. We'll be able to find each other again afterward."

Miles still resented the idea. "What if we can't?"

Percy shook his head. "Look, this is all hypothetical anyway. Chances are we aren't going to be chased. But, if we do, this is the safest option."

"Percy's right," Lia said, giving Miles an apologetic look. "It's the best choice we'll have. If we get split up, we will find each other."

Miles had much more to say in protest, but he bit his tongue. There was no point. "Let's just hurry up and go," he said, irritation evident in his tone.

It started to rain.

The rain was light, but the thunder guaranteed that it would grow heavier soon.

Miles let out a short noise of disgust at the rain's timing, but it didn't achieve much. He turned around and started shuffling along the sidewalk, expecting the others to follow.

"Is the Altered still by that house?" Lia asked as she scrambled to her feet, slinging the backpack over a shoulder and jogging to catch up with Miles.

Miles glanced over to where the Altered had been before. Sure enough, the Altered person was still there, still pacing along the fence of the house like they didn't even notice that it was raining. "Yeah."

"We've got to be quick and quiet," said Lia, looking back at the others as she said this. "Don't dawdle. We need to get past this Altered as quickly as possible."

The group quickly clumped together, each of them now equipped with weapons. Each of them had knives sans Aaron, who still had a death grip on his bat.

The rain grew a little heavier, plastering Miles' shirt to his body. It was uncomfortable and difficult to put up with, but the pitter-patter of water hitting the ground was enough to mask the sound of their footsteps. The haze helped, too.

Passing the Altered by wasn't as difficult as Miles had thought it would be, and it was probably partly thanks to the steady rain. Even after they reached the end of the street and left the Altered behind, nobody spoke or broke away from the tight cluster they'd formed.

It was another few minutes of walking together, silently, through the rain, before anybody said anything. When a voice rose, it was Percy's.

"We're getting closer."

Miles was the first to reply. "Yeah. Closer to danger."

________________

+1393 Words.