What they did know was that the water changed people, or was it the air?
There were too many debates for anyone to really pick a side.
Arguing wouldn't solve the problem anyway, wouldn't unchange anybody.
The Changed were a pretty common site now and growing by the day.
You could see them shambling about their lives, metal exteriors cracked to expose their flesh.
In some places they had been worn to thin you could see right through them.
Most of them couldn't speak, it didn't help the fear their appearance brought.
This story is a glimpse into one of the Changed, his name was Jayden.
During his Change his mother took the family to the Lake District, to isolation.
Things had been peaceful until she passed away it was just him and the twins.
Jayden worried about them growing up away from people and so they left.
He didn't bring any food with them, he never ate and the twins hunted for themself.
While they were fairly self-sufficient he was never sure if they were one person or two.
All he'd ever seen of them were their wide toothy mouths, stick-like arms and a bit of their torso.
They hadn't grown any metal yet but he assumed they were Changed like him.
He dragged them along behind him in an old beer cooler he found.
Sometimes he saw lights nearby but they generally turned out to be other Changed like him.
They took one look at the twins and turned them away.
Strange how even the outcasts would cast out smaller people.
And so they became nomads, moving day and night around the great lakes and valleys of England.
They tried moving further North but the frost made Jayden's joints seize up and his vision flicker.
He had no idea how long they would wander for, would the twins grow up and leave him?
Thinking about it, they'd been so quiet as of late.
Usually they screamed when they wanted his attention (which was fairly regular).
It could have been four days since they lasted cried for him, he never paid much attention to time,
He found a sheltered area among some long grass and gently opened their container.
Usually they sat in a bundle of fabric but somewhere along the line it had turned to mush.
They lay in there lifeless and pale, tinged blue around the edges and rotted to bones waist-down.
If he had a nose he supposed he would have smelled them rotting away.
With a brief prayer that his mother had taught him, he closed the lid and walked away.
It took him a day to find another Changed who was willing to let him stay.
Sometimes he went back and visited his deceased siblings.
Sometimes he even went back to visit his mother's grave as well.
Life went back to being quiet, Changed couldn't talk.
He wondered if he would ever rust.
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