It was almost as though time was suspended. As he tried to focus his vision, the girls seemed to blur together as their words mixed together and Michael struggled to breathe.

"Get him a chair," one of them said.

"He looks really out of it," said another.

The blackness was gone and he realised he was now sat in a comfortable armchair with the women looking at him, trying to get his attention and bring him back into focus.

His first words were, "We need to go to the Tower."

In turn, his eyes went to each of the girls, all three standing above him and in front of him. First, the platinum blonde Sarah, her features cold and angry as ever but with some slight concern in there, hidden underneath. He noticed her sharp eyes and a scar along one side of her neck, but his attention moved to the next of the trio. Katie's warm eyes were wide with concern as she held a hand on Michael's arm and was checking to see if he was okay. Her chest was flushed and she was taking heavy breaths as Michael met her gaze.

His eyes, and mind, focused finally on the third, Lucy. The redheaded woman looked almost impassive and stony faced as she stared back at Michael with those sharp eyes and he noticed, for the first time, how green they were.

Then the women all began to speak, in turn.

"Michael?" said Lucy, sounding the most composed, which surprised him.

"What the fuck was that, dude?" came Sarah's irritated voice, clearly unhappy with him, as usual. Then finally, the worried, and the sweetest of the three women's, came from the petite girl beside him, still touching him on his arm.

"Michael, what happened?"

It was hard to concentrate, as his vision came back into focus, but he tried. The thought in his head was simple, and clear: get to the Tower.

As his consciousness returned in bits and pieces to him, he argued internally about whether he should mention the hooded black figure. If the vision had even happened at all. Was it a real person?

Or a mirage, maybe. But either way, he'd seen it.

He'd seen the cloaked and shadowed figure before. Fleeting glimpses at various moments. But he'd put that down to his imagination. It was so strange. His body was tingling with electricity, like the surge of energy was moving through his body, not unpleasantly, and yet not completely welcome.

"Michael," came the sweet, high pitched, concerned voice, "you there? You okay?"

"Um, yeah. I just, I had this, like... feeling, like I had to get up, you know?" He couldn't quite remember, and it seemed that it had been like a strange daydream. A compulsion.

"No," Sarah replied. She gave the two girls on either side of her a hard glance. "That doesn't make any sense."

The three women gave him confused, and slightly suspicious looks as they stood in front of him.

Michael replied, "Well, I mean I felt, well... something like, I needed to go to The Tower, right. Like a feeling."

"You said," Katie pointed out. Michael hadn't noticed before how small her nose was and how sweet her face looked when it was twisted up into an expression of worry, "But only just now." Her big, dark brown eyes met Michael's gaze.

"I didn't say it before, then?"

"You didn't say anything at all." Lucy replied. "You got up and looked really strange and just sort of fell down, right? Do you know why you did that?"

"Uh," Michael stuttered, "no."

And to be honest, he didn't really know; all he had were flashes of the Tower, where it was, and the voice of the Death Goddess telling him that he must go there, her words simply a memory from when she initially told him. After that, he remembered falling, losing consciousness and seeing the black hooded figure, who was definitely not the Death Goddess, as he came around back to reality where the girls were looking at him.

If you could call this reality.

He decided against telling the girls about the black hooded figure, instead opting to tell them that he thought whatever was in charge of the visions was simply trying to give him more directions to the Tower.

"So, uh, that's it..." he concluded his half-truth, and noticed Lucy giving him an intense look. As he caught her eye she didn't look away. He looked down at the floor.

"Well," the brunette said, her voice a soft tone that seemed to lighten the atmosphere in the room somewhat, "I'm not sure how much you remember, but we all decided that we'll leave and go to the Tower, and you can come with us." Her tone seemed a bit too sweet and it gave him an impression that there was more going on behind those brown eyes. Something which the other girls might be keeping a secret from him, maybe.

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They were keeping secrets, he was keeping secrets. Michael couldn't judge, not really. He just had to remember not to trust any of these girls.

"So what's your plan?" He gestured to the three, hoping to divert attention away from the strange behaviour that he couldn't really explain, but not really having much luck.

Sarah shot a look at Lucy and then to Katie before answering.

"Nothing too complex. You seem to be the only one who has an idea of how to get to the Tower, right, Mike?"

"I think so," he said, trying to treat the question as a straight one rather than the probing interrogation it really was. We need to head slightly north-west from here. It's probably in the city, thirty-five miles or so. I..." He paused, brain fog hitting him, causing him to close his eyes.

"Are you alright?" said Katie. She'd started rubbing her hand over his back and shoulder. "We can get some water for you and you can lie down if you want?"

He was, again, surprised by her care, even as she gave him that soft, motherly expression that was very much in contrast with the feeling he got when he tried to read the room. "I don't think I need to lie down," Michael said, still slightly unsure. His head hurt a bit but it felt more like he needed to do something.

"Thirty-five miles will take us forever on foot."

"There are plenty of cars outside." Michael replied. "It doesn't seem like they've been badly affected by the chaos."

Katie gave him a slight frown.

Sarah was less tactful. "We're supposed to follow this guy to the Tower, and he hasn't even figured out that none of the vehicles work since the Change?"

Lucy gave Sarah a stern look and Katie turned her gaze from the other women back to Michael. She spoke slowly. "When we were coming from Uni back to here, we tried to use cars but none of them seemed to be working." Her hand on Michael's arm had felt reassuring, and the gentle touch, though surprising, had helped to take the sting out of the reality he had somehow managed to avoid seeing, but it still hurt.

"None of them?" he replied, somewhat shocked at the news. He couldn't understand it; why had he thought it was a given that cars and technology still worked, but they clearly did not, at least, not from what Katie had said.

"No," said the redhead, Lucy. "We found cars abandoned all over the streets. And, when we first got back, Sarah here had already been trying for days to get cars working. There was nothing that we could do."

"Maybe the holes in the sky caused an EMP or something," Michael said, thinking it through. "That'd explain the technology failing." His stomach sank. This wasn't going to make the trek any easier.

"Well, EMP or whatever, that means that we've gotta go to this Tower place on foot."

He looked at Sarah and tried to empathise. "You're right. And I get it, I really do, why you don't want to just follow my lead to somewhere and something we don't know what we're walking into."

The blonde's facade softened, her gaze dropping and he continued. "I get that, Sarah. I do. I mean, we've got nothing else to go on, so we're gonna have to try to go together. But I think we should wait here a couple of days and get some supplies together and really work out a plan together before we run into any more trouble."

He watched as Sarah turned from him to Katie and Lucy. And then he noticed the three girls turn back to each other in a silent conversation that excluded him from whatever it was that was happening.

It felt strange. They seemed to be considering something very important and they'd not only cut Michael out but also didn't even look in his direction as they made their decision. Finally, Lucy's voice said, "Yeah, I think so."

All the girls turned to him in a synchronised way that was a bit unnerving and said in one voice, "Let's do it."

"Right. So..." said Michael, suddenly aware of the change in mood. He thought it'd be best if he just let the girls give him their plan. After a moment, Lucy said, "We have plenty of supplies. If we need anything else, Sarah will go and find supplies, because, well... she's the only one of us who has the ability to not be detected."

"OK", Michael replied. He looked at the platinum blonde girl and gave her an impressed smile which she did not return, simply staring at him, then back to her friends, then to him, as though sizing him up for something.

Katie then said, directly to Michael, "We'd like you to draw us up a plan of what we can expect to be up against. And also you should work with me, Sarah and Lucy on what the route will be and what we'll need to take with us."

"Alright..." he replied, once again.

"We'll leave the day after tomorrow, so you can get your energy back," Lucy added, her voice calm, but it didn't make Michael any less wary of whatever was going on with these three girls, because he felt that they were still keeping something from him, despite having come this far already. He tried not to feel uncomfortable, instead opting to smile and nod, and the other three women all did the same to each other as if in agreement, and they smiled in a very friendly manner.

While everything seemed amicable, tensions brewed under the surface. Michael knew he'd need to tread carefully. As the girls separated and seemed to go about finding things to do, Michael sat and listened as a light sound pricked up the corner of his attention.

Tick. Click. Tick. Click.

"Uh, I'm not sure if I'm having another episode, guys," he said to nobody in particular, "can any of you hear that sound?"

"Hear what sound?" asked Katie from another room. Lucy's red hair appeared around the doorway and then the girl's body came out into view, and Michael thought he could detect a little worry in her face as her green eyes looked over him.

The clicking and ticking got louder, and it was clear to Michael that it was not his mind playing tricks on him.

"It's a clicking noise," he said. "Or a tapping."

For a moment, the girls looked over at him like he was crazy, clearly questioning their own judgement again, but as they came closer to Michael to investigate, they seemed to notice that the clicking and ticking sound was definitely real. As the three girls closed in around Michael and stood looking around, a noise suddenly appeared above their heads, and it seemed to Michael to sound as if someone had dropped something on the roof of the building.

"I heard it!" Lucy said, with an alarmed expression on her face. Katie also had her head cocked upwards.

"That sounded like it was on the roof!" The brunette looked worried.

"Yeah..." Sarah replied, coolly, but also deliberately trying to mask her alarm.

Michael stood up from his seat, hoping to get a better read of where the sound was coming from. But then from the other side of the door to the library, a scratching sound appeared. As he watched, a shadow passed across the bottom of the doorway.

The women gave him worried looks as they gathered together in a little circle around where he stood. A voice in Michael's head said to him that he needed to stay calm and get them out of here.

Another loud noise from the roof told him that whatever was here, there was more than one of the creatures, and that meant they needed to leave, now.

He heard Sarah muttering something under her breath to herself.

Then, from another direction, there was a tapping at the window, and the four of them looked at the source of the noise. Michael couldn't quite believe his eyes. He wasn't the first to speak though.

"What the fuck is that?" asked Sarah, no longer even trying to conceal her alarm.