Kidou, I'm tired of driving. Can't we find somewhere safe?  You signed to your childhood friend.

No. No where is safe. Kidou tried his best to sign with one hand, while he drove with the other. He drove a large SUV, filled with the necessities: food, water, clothes, extra gasoline. Not to mention a few mementos here or there.

A lot of these places were abandoned now. He couldn't even remember a time when they weren't. Cagasters began breaking out a decade before he was born, and now all that was left was ruins. You and he had been born in a small town that had remained Cagaster-free for many years. It was isolated, yet self-sufficient. No one thought that it would soon become a cage.

At the first person infected, Kidou left and took you with him. There was nothing to stay for anyway.

What is not safe here?  You asked with a silent sigh and eye roll. It's abandoned.

It's too open. He responded. We need a cave.

Another silent sigh. You didn't care for caves; too dark for your tastes.

So you continued on in the passenger seat, reading the same book that you had been reading since your escape from the contaminated village.  Traveling light was important in the midst of an apocalypse.

How do you read? Kidou tapped you to get your attention and asked.

This was a random, albeit good question. Hearing people read by converting the letters on the page to a phonological code in their auditory language system. In plain English, hearing people hear their voices in their head while they read. Some Deaf people who haven't had hearing at all in their lives, must develop a different way of learning to read. But it wasn't that difficult to do, in fact, it was innate.

I see the words as signs in my head. You responded. My parents would sign the word, then point to the word. Eventually I just remembered. Words I don't know, I use clues in the sentence to figure out.

"Huh." Kidou made a noise. "Interesting..."

In reality, however, he didn't have much more to talk about. You and he had been neighbors and now as teens, were stuck together a lot of the time. That meant you had covered most conversation topics. The normal ones, at least. Sometimes now, they turned a little more disturbed.

Would you kill me if I became a Cagaster? You asked.

Yes.

Good. I would kill you too.

Make sure it's my neck. I don't want to become an ugly bug.

You smiled.

You would be an ugly bug, definitely.

Kidou smacked your shoulder, but he had something of a smile too.

For more science on how Deaf people learn to read: http://psych.nyu.edu/pelli/docs/azbel2004intel.pdf