The Altered.

Chapter XXIII.

"What happened?" demanded Bri, voice pitchy with distress. She didn't wait for the answer before clambering down the rope ladder.

Miles and Aaron exchanged unknowing, frightful glances, and everybody else from Bri's group just looked confused.

Without a second thought, Miles made for the ladder once Bri had reached the bottom, starting to fumble his way down.

Aaron followed, and soon they were both on the ground.

"Don't come down!" Bri called to her group, evident anxiety written all over her face. "We might need you up there to help soon."

"What's going on?" Miles pressed. It was hard to tell what was happening. Everybody - and by that, he meant Lia, Eira, Luca, and Bri - was crowding around a fallen form on the ground at the base of the ladder, and it took Miles a while to comprehend that it was Percy.

He shoved his way between Lia and Eira, eyes wide.

"He fell off the ladder," Lia explained in a rush, kneeling down beside Percy. "But the fall didn't hurt him. Whatever caused the fall, did."

Lia lightly prodded Percy's cheek, and Miles felt himself relax a little when Percy groaned and had the strength to knock Lia away. Miles could feel his heart hammering as he watched, racking his brain for what could have happened.

"I knew something was wrong," Miles said all of a sudden, and Lia's eyes shot up to him, so he continued. "He's looked really weird for the last hour. Like he's sick or something." Thinking back to the times that day that he'd noticed Percy wincing or holding his shoulder or standing uncomfortably was now all starting to piece itself together.

What Miles had said still applied: Percy was acting weird. Percy was sweating and digging his fingers into the ground, grinding his teeth and frowning as if a headache plagued him. He was twitching, Miles realised, and the harder he looked, the more he noticed that Percy's right arm was what seemed to be in the most pain. Writhing on the ground, Percy was constantly going between clutching his right arm in his left hand or clenching and unclenching his right fist.

Miles knelt down, too, on the other side of Percy than Lia. Lia said, "Why didn't you say something earlier?"

"Because he's been complaining about how cold he was after getting in the creek," Miles answered, gently taking hold of Percy's right wrist. The boy's whole arm was trembling. "I thought he was just being annoying."

Even though Percy was in evident pain, his upper lip curled at Miles' comment and his reddened eyes moved to give Miles a glare that failed to be intimidating while he was in this state.

Lia seemed to understand Miles' point, but that didn't mean she looked happy about it. "What's wrong with his arm?" she'd finally also noticed that there was something amiss about it.

"It hurts," groaned Percy breathlessly, pressing the side of his face hard against the dusty ground and attempting to tug his arm from Miles' grip.

Miles held it firmly, even as Percy twisted his wrist and ripped at the air like he was trying to grab something nobody else could see. Percy rolled his eyes once, then again - he was trying to stay awake. "I know it hurts," Miles said, voice devoid of sympathy and filled with something more like fear, "but you need to calm down."

But Percy couldn't calm down - that much was clear. It was almost like his body had a mind of its own, moving without accordance to Percy's will. It reminded Miles eerily of what the Altered looked like; unable to grasp control over themselves. Percy was kicking at the dirt, scuffing his expensive sneakers. Rolling from side to side, gasping and panting and moaning. His eyelids fluttered, but he again managed to keep his eyes open for a little while longer.

Lia pressed the back of her hand carefully against his forehead. "He's so hot."

"I appreciate... you think so..." Percy rasped, each word accompanied by ragged breaths, "but now... isn't the time for compliments."

Lia pursed her lips at this comment. "Your temperature, Percy. Your temperature is high."

Percy hissed, "No, no... cold. So... so..."

"Cold," Lia finished. "Got it." She redirected her gaze to Miles. "He's got a fever, but how?" As she said this, she was tugging off the cardigan she'd been wearing and wrapping it around Percy. It was light, but it was better than nothing. "They can't appear out of the blue like this."

"Yeah, and the Altered can't be losing their minds. Nothing that's happened in the last twenty-four hours is possible," Miles said, for once being a voice of reason. "We just have to accept that it's happening and figure out how to stop it. Nothing's impossible anymore, apparently."

Lia understood that he was right and let herself look back at Percy. "Percy, we need to get you up into the treehouse. You can't lie here all day."

She got no response. Though Percy was still squirming and evidently still in pain, there was something now far-away about his eyes that suggested he probably wasn't aware of his surroundings any longer or of what Lia had just said. Taking one look at his glassy eyes, Lia bit the inside of her cheek and slid her hand under Percy's head. "We need to get him up, but when he's like this, I don't know how."

Bri piped up. "We can try our hardest to get him at least a little way up the ladder, then from the top, the others can help pull him up." 'The others' referred to the other members of Bri's group, who were worriedly peering out windows of the treehouse.

"You're making him sound like a ragdoll," Lia said uncomfortably. "I don't think that will work."

"Well the only other option is the actual house on this property, and I went in there earlier. The place is falling apart. You don't want to keep a sick kid in there, or anybody, at that. It's too dangerous."

Miles started at the rope ladder to the treehouse. "It's impossible."

Lia let out a long breath. "Weren't you just the one who said nothing is impossible now?"

"That was different. How do we get a person who weighs as much as us up into a treehouse? Maybe with a real ladder, it would be possible. But with a rope ladder?" Miles shook his head.

Bri gasped all of a sudden, and all eyes turned on her. "Wait!" She pointed to something in the corner of the yard, almost completely hidden by overgrown bushes and vines and trees. "That shed. What if there's something in there we can use?"

"... I guess it's worth a try."

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