ALPHA WAVE

Chapter 5: Indestructible.

I never regret wearing shorts and a tank in the summer more than I do today. The mosquitoes were feasting on me like I was their own personal buffet. They were going at me like I was the last chicken wing on the 4th of July, leaving me feeling more like a snack than a human being. I'm pretty sure I saw them high-fiving each other as they took turns taking bites out of me as if I was the main course. I couldn't see a thing, stumbling around blindly like a drunk at a carnival game. The only light was the moon, peeking through the trees like a shy kid at a dance.

"Are we there yet?" I whined, my voice high-pitched and annoying even to my own ears. "I can't feel my legs and I'm pretty sure I'm a mosquito's happy meal." I stumbled behind him like a drunken toddler, tripping over every rock and twig in sight.

Meanwhile, he was strolling ahead like he was on a casual midnight walk in the park, not a care in the world.

"Hello?" I shouted after him, hoping he hadn't abandoned me for the mosquitoes to finish off. "I know you can hear me, you heartless hiking machine!"

But he just kept walking, like he was immune to my whining and completely impervious to the mosquitoes. Maybe infected's were impervious to insect bites and whining.

"Keep walkin'," he said in his usual dry tone.

"Are you kidding me?" I smacked a mosquito feasting on my neck, feeling the disgusting squish of my own blood. "I feel like a walking blood bank. This is not how I imagined dying."

"We're almost there," he repeated for what felt like the hundredth time.

"You said that already," I groaned, swatting at the buzzing pests around my face. "And not all of us have built-in night version."

"Maybe if you talk less and walk more, we'd get there faster," he grumbled, quickening his pace.

"Excuse me for not being a seven-foot-tall giant with gazelle-like legs," I shot back, smacking my arm and killing another swarm of mosquitoes. "I don't even think I have enough blood to make it that far. And where are we going anyway?"

"Are all females this dramatic or are you a special case?"

"Are all infected—"

He growls dangerously. I swallow— hard. Right sen-si-tive. "Are we there yet?"

"No."

"Are you sure we're not lost?" He growled, obviously fed up with my constant questions."How come you're not tired? Don't you get tired? And why aren't the mosquitoes biting you? You clearly have more blood to spare than I do."

"Do you understand the concept of no talkin'?" he gritted.

"You don't talk a lot, do you?"

"You talk enough for the both of us," he snaps.

I ignore his rudeness because the lord knows I was two seconds away from strangling him with my own shoelaces. "What's your name?"

"What, infected is not workin' out for you?"

I roll my eyes. "I'm Bellamy."

"Don't remember askin'."

"Alright if you are not going to tell me your name then I'll just have to guess." He cursed under his breath and picked up his pace. "Jack? Harry? Peter? Brett? Emmett? Tristan? William? Wait is any of that Scottish? Oh, I know Duncan, Hamish, Logan—"

"Bloody hell, if I tell you my name, would you stop talkin'?" he growls pulling at his hair.

"Yep." I stumble over a protruding root, nearly face-planting for what feels like the hundredth time, but manage to catch myself.