The Altered.

Chapter V.

"Take off your shirt," Lia ordered.

"What?" panted Aaron through gritted teeth.

They were hiding.

There were four of them: Miles, Lia, Aaron, and Eira. Hiding. They had made their way painstakingly slowly - courtesy of Aaron's wound - to a primary school playground. It had always been easily accessible if you knew where to go, even when the school was empty like it was at this time of day. Lia had led the other three to the one place that she thought might be safe. The primary school playground was a place that had all kinds of different entrances, but you'd have to have used them before to be aware of their existence. For at least a while, they would encounter - hopefully - nobody else. Miles hoped that was enough time for Lia to do the explaining she'd promised.

"I said take off your shirt," she repeated, getting up from where she'd seated herself. They were all huddled in the little plastic play house in the school playground, Eira and Aaron the closest together. Lia didn't have to move far to get to Aaron, though. "We don't have medical supplies, so you'll have to wrap your shirt around the wound as a bandage. I'm not doing it for you. It's dangerous to touch other peoples' blood."

While Aaron groaned in protest and Eira murmured something softly to him, Miles pointed out, "Lia, you said you had explaining to do."

"I do," she said, sounding suddenly weary. "I'm sorry, just -" she broke off. Once Eira was helping Aaron pull his shirt over his head, Lia shuffled back to where she'd been seated before.

"Okay," she started again, blinking a few times in rapid succession to wake herself up. Running both hands through her long black locks, she continued, "I'd been following the man for a little while."

Aaron let out a short yip of pain and Miles shot him an impatient look. "Care to die quietly?" Miles barked. "She's trying to talk."

This earned Miles an enraged glare from Eira.

Without missing a beat, Miles pressed Lia again for more information. "Okay, continue please."

She did. "Sorry, let me restart. From the proper beginning." She took one short breath and then continued. "I got the notification when it was sent out, and it was real easy for me to get out of my house. My dad was out, you see, and mom, well" - she scratched her head - "mom doesn't live with us anyway. I got out easily and I brought a knife with me. Just a kitchen knife, but it was sharp so I knew it would protect me if I needed to use it. Lucky I brought it, too."

After a short breath, she resumed, "I saw the man after I'd been walking for about fifteen minutes. I was trying to avoid the main part of town and stick to the outskirts, but I needn't have bothered. Nobody was around, anyway. It was odd and freaky. Then I saw this guy. He looked like he was ill. Bad ill, too. Wandering around sneakily with a knife in his hand. His eyes were evil. I could tell immediately that something was off. This is a middle aged man, carrying a knife and walking around at this hour? My first thought was that he can't have been Altered, because Altered people don't do that at all - it's one of the promises that come with being Altered. No criminals anymore, if everyone is modified."

"Get on with it," Eira urged as she helped Aaron wrap his shirt around his wound. It was deeper than Miles had thought, but clean. They'd need to head to a hospital as soon as possible, or at least get medical supplies. Aaron was looking woozy; half-asleep and pale.

"Right, right, sorry. Anyway. I saw this guy and he looked sketchy, so I followed him from a distance. Safe distance, mind you. Must have been another half hour before I noticed him start to consider stopping. Or that's what it looked like he was doing. And in the end, he did stop. In a plasticy bush beneath a tree. It took me a little while to find a hiding place, but when I realised that the apartment was empty, I clambered up onto the first floor balcony and waited. Then, you came along." She pointed to Eira. "You got in the tree and the man just watched you. His eyes were hungry, I swear. He kept shifting his position to get a better look at you."

Eira whimpered, but she looked as disgusted as nervous. "Oh, god," she muttered, leaning against Aaron. "I didn't even see him there!"

"He was waiting for something," Lia continued. "And I think he was waiting because he could tell you were waiting. Then your brother came along, and the other boy." A gesture to Miles. "And the man didn't wait much longer before jumping on Blondie, right? I couldn't hesitate much longer, or you were roadkill. I'm sorry I didn't notice what was happening sooner - I could've prevented any wounds at all. So I just jumped off the balcony with my knife, and..." she trailed off, ending the sentnece with a soft shrug, ducking her head. "You know the ending."

"Lia," Miles started slowly, "why did you kill him?"

Lia turned to him, and something in her face told him that the thought of killing somebody would plague her for the rest of her life. "I don't know. I'd never used a weapon before. In a modified society, there is no need to be wary of others or to learn self-defense. Everyone is safe. So I just... did what I thought of the second before I hit. And it killed him."

"Do you regret it?"

Her eyes shone, but not with joy. Miles would have said it was tears, but she frantically wiped her eyes before he could confirm the guess. "Of course I do," she admitted, leaning back against the plastic wall of the playhouse. "I always will. But I don't want to talk about that - I want to talk about how the hell this is possible."

"Me too," Aaron mumbled dazedly, and that's what made Miles realise that the other boy was still awake and listening.

"Look," Lia said, sounding oddly formal after her casual way of speaking her story, "I think there's obviously something wrong to do with the man's Alteration, here. But it's not just that. Even if his Alteration went wrong, it shouldn't mean that he becomes some terrifying criminal all of a sudden. I mean, when has the Alteration even ever gone wrong, anyway?" She didn't expect an answer. "There was something else wrong with that man."

There weren't many things that Miles could think of that seemed logical. Lia had a point - the Alteration had never gone wrong before, and he doubted it ever would. Yet at the same time, there was concrete proof that something, somewhere along the line, must have gone corrupt. Why else would that man have attacked Aaron?

Miles' mind was sidetracked suddenly to something he remembered seeing on his phone; something in the notification they'd gotten. "The tenth instruction," he blurted all of a sudden, lifting his eyes to find that everybody was already staring at him.

They'd all read the tenth instruction, and they all recalled it.

All at once, four voices chimed in on the same word: "Virus."

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Virus :0