The Differents | ✓

T H I R T Y - F O U R

A/N: long chapter warning! I'm sorry that I couldn't split this one up, but it's all one big action scene and nobody wants chapter breaks in that, do they? Anyway, I hope you forgive me :)

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It was hard to see the things chasing us with the dimming light of the evening, but when they ran into the patches of orange-red light made by the setting sun, I saw them. They were definitely not human but didn't look like animals either. They seemed to have no trace of any natural thing on them and appeared to be made entirely of metal. They ran on four legs and had big jaws with sharp teeth inside them, which they swung around hungrily. If they weren't chasing us, I might have asked Sniper to identify them with his little piece of technology, but we were being chased by these things and they most definitely looked like they wanted to eat us.

The screeching sound and all the others we had been hearing made sense now. It was these metallic creatures that were making them.

The screeching continued and I turned back around to Sniper, who had grabbed my arm and was pulling me forward. "Don't look! You'll slow down!"

"I can't run long distances!" I yelled.

"Well, you're going to have to! I don't think you have a choice!"

At that moment, we heard a sort of whooshing sound and then something hit one of the trees in front of us. It writhed around on the floor, the metallic skin reflecting bright red and orange, before snapping its head up and fixing its glowing red eyes at us.

Sniper shot it in the chest before the creature could move at us.

"They're throwing themselves at us!" I yelled, realizing that the creature had been one of the ones chasing us. We ran by the one who had hit the tree and I saw that it was still moving slightly. "I don't know if the guns will do anything!"

He really was crying now. So was I. We heard another screech and the whooshing sound came again and another one hit a tree on our left. I screamed and fired at it with my own gun. It made another horrible screeching sound as it tried to shake the bullet loose from its chest.

"The guns won't do anything!" Sniper yelled. "They aren't real animals!"

I realized this now, as I looked behind us again. Not only were the snarling creatures made from metal, but the metal wasn't consistent. There were gaps between them and as one ran into a patch of light, I could see some sort of technology working away on the inside of its chest.

"What if we use the other setting on the guns?" I yelled desperately. "Will the lasers do anything?"

"They might," he replied, "but you'll have to be quick. The sun is setting fast and we didn't give the solar panels any time to charge."

I took my gun into both hands and, trying to keep running, I switched it to the laser function. The solar panel on top glowed faintly before extinguishing and I hoped that meant it was working.

I pointed it behind me and fired into the mob of creatures. A bright beam of light exploded from the gun and hit something, triggering a yelp from one of the creatures. One of them fell over, making a few of the ones behind it trip over it.

"I think it worked!" Sniper said.

"It also pissed them off!" I yelled back, turning to face him again. The screeching had doubled in volume and the creatures somehow looked twice as angry as before. They started hurling themselves at us again, barely missing us. One of them came so close to us that we had to duck, and the one immediately after it made us swerve to the side to avoid it. By now, Sniper had switched his own gun to the laser function and we were both shooting any that came too close. It seemed to be working, too. The lasers melted the metal wherever it hit the creatures, causing them to yelp and whimper and slow down. It didn't stop them completely, but the ones that got hit were swiftly left behind.