The Altered.

Chapter LXII.

That night, Miles told himself he'd get sleep.

His body was ready to accept that. His limbs felt weighted and his eyelids were drooping and the lounge in the library had never looked more comfortable. The problem wasn't about his willingness to sleep, though - he'd been trying to get a good night's sleep since the day he'd killed Ty. But just because he wanted it didn't mean it would happen.

So he lay there, completely still, staring blankly at the ceiling and just waiting for sleep to come. It wouldn't. There was only one other person awake, and that was Aaron, who was on his shift. Miles rolled onto his side, squeezing his eyes shut like maybe that would help. There were voices in his head; voices that weren't his own. Voices of his friends, his family, throwing comments at him that they'd have never said if the voices were coming from anywhere but his imagination.

His own shift was going to begin in a little over an hour, so he almost settled for just lying awake until that time came. It seemed, conveniently, that just when he set his mind to that, his body finally welcomed sleep and he felt his eyes slip closed.

Just like every other night he'd tried to get a good night's sleep since Ty's death, he couldn't. Each night was accompanied by jarring nightmares that would plague him often into the next day. Sometimes he forgot them as soon as he woke up. Most commonly, he'd be jolted awake in a cold sweat at many intervals throughout the night, dreams haunting him. He'd been lucky to get a few hours sleep each night - he hoped he was more successful tonight.

Despite that hope, Miles was just as unlucky tonight. Almost as soon as sleep finally got a grasp on him, his head was brimming with flashes of scenes that he couldn't distinguish between memory or just dream. Whether or not he saw behind his eyes had even happened, it felt like everything was something he'd seen before - and it scared him.

He was in the dark for most of it, but the sensations were as vivid as they would be in real life. His hands were sticky - somewhere consciously, he understood that it could only be blood coating his hands. In his ears, there was the repetitive sound of metal on metal, sharp and ongoing sounds that could have been knives clattering to the floor or weapons against weapons. His head filled with bloodcurdling screams and Ty's voice.

Ty's voice telling him over and over that everything that had happened had been his fault. Miles, even in his dream, was mostly convinced that this artificial-Ty that his nightmare had constructed was actually right. Ty had tried to tell Miles, the night that the notification came through, not to leave.

But he'd left, and from there, everything had gone downhill.

Real emotions coursed through him - they weren't just in the dream. Nothing about the nightmare felt pretend. It was terrifying, and there was a voice screaming at the back of his mind to wake up. Maybe it felt so real because here Ty was, dying in his dream, half as gruesomely as he'd died in real life but just as gut-wrenching. He wished he'd made this all up - the Altered going crazy, Harvey and Ty dying, the fact that he and his group could be the next to find themselves dead.

Miles tossed and turned restlessly in his sleep without even realising he was doing it, thrashing against phantom hands around his throat and holding his hands desperately against bleeding wounds that weren't his own. There were other people in his dream - his friends from school, his family. His new friends, too. Aaron. Aaron was always in Miles' head - most notably over the last few days, even before Ty's death - whether Miles was asleep or not. He wasn't quite sure what to make of it, to be honest.

On the note of Aaron, Aaron was beside Miles now. Saying his name, repeating it, over and over in a hushed whisper. Miles, still half-asleep, didn't process that Aaron was trying to shake him awake until he woke himself up with a gasp. His hands were sticky. Sweat, not blood. His throat felt constricted. Just the collar of his shirt. Miles sat up all of a sudden, grabbed Aaron's shoulder - Aaron was crouched beside him - to hold himself in that position while he gasped for air.