The Altered.

Chapter XXXV.

Miles was on the roof of the treehouse.

Aaron was also there.

The roof of the treehouse was flat and stable, and could be accessed only really by slipping out a window and precariously scrambling up the tree until one could crawl onto the roof. Up until now, whoever was on shift would sit at the bottom of the ladder.

Miles hadn't wanted to, tonight.

Nobody had stopped him as he clambered onto the roof at the beginning of the night with a flashlight, knife and his phone. Shortly, Aaron had followed, and it had been an entertaining show of flailing limbs and muttered curses before Aaron was on the roof.

"You're not very elegant for a dancer," Miles remarked when Aaron collapsed onto the roof, panting.

Aaron didn't look impressed. "What caused the spontaneous decision to take tonight's shift on the roof?"

"A more appropriate vantage point," Miles answered matter-of-factly. "We can see everything from up here."

The sun had set a little under an hour ago, and to some extent the sky was still a purple-blue hue as opposed to the black it would become soon enough. What Miles had said was one reason he'd come up here, but there were more. It was nicer, up here. The wind was sharp and cool and the waning moon was in clear sight.

From inside the treehouse, there were muffled conversations coming to a close. Miles was glad that the wood of the flat roof was thick and had no gaps in it, for he really didn't want to hear want anybody was saying. He'd spent the entire remainder of the afternoon playing with Buddy, which had been a surprisingly relaxing activity for the most part, which was only when Buddy wasn't knocking him to the ground and licking him frantically. Climbing onto the roof was the first time he'd returned to the treehouse since he'd hurt Declan.

"You can't ignore them forever, you know," Aaron said, as if reading Miles' mind.

"Yes, I can." He couldn't, but he could try. "I'll just live up here, maybe. Until the week is up. Soon enough, Percy's going to have to accept the fate for that arm of his and our group is going to have to head back to the city."

"Distancing yourself from the world isn't going to solve any problems."

"Don't be so dramatic," Miles drawled, running a hand through his hair before flopping onto his back. "You guys aren't so important that I'd call you 'the world'."

"Aren't you just delightful?" Aaron said tersely.

Miles decided to ignore Aaron and instead let himself watch clouds crawl across the inky sky. He rested his arms on his stomach. His ribs still hurt from where Declan had driven his elbow into them, but any time he thought about that fight, Miles' stomach churned.

Slowly, Aaron lay down beside Miles, letting out a long sigh.

"Aaron," Miles said, and then nothing else.

"Yeah?"

"Are you afraid of dying?"

"Anybody who isn't afraid of dying is a fool," Aaron said at once

Miles resisted the urge to say, Then I'm a fool.

Death wasn't meant to be scary, was it? Animals lived their lives without even knowing they'd die one day. Why could humans not be the same?

Then only thing that made death a frightening prospect was, really, how it could come about.

Miles' mind was cast back to the countless times when he'd asked himself if death was really meant to be a scary thing. The question re-emerged when it wasn't welcome. Miles wasn't a violent person. At least - he didn't want to be. But sometimes he was merely curious as to what extent one could endure before... before, well, dying. And was the scary part dying, or what came before it?