"Here..."

The following is a quote from Chapter 22 of "The Knife of Never Letting Go" by Patrick Ness, which was part of my holiday reading material...

The story to this point is that Todd believes all women to have died out on his planet, due to a disease which also meant men could read each other's, and animals' thoughts as "noise". Nothing was private because "noise" was everywhere. Todd is due to go through his coming of age process when he discovers things might not be as they seem. The long and short of it is that he ends up running away from his home town with his dog (Manchee), and finds a girl (Viola)... a girl with no "noise".
As we join the story with this quote, Todd has witnessed destruction of newly discovered towns and truths at the hands of the army who are chasing him. He's tired, injured, hungry, and confused, and finds himself staring down at a plain of legions of unknown "creachers", in a herd as far as the eye can see.
The noise coming from this herd is different to what he's heard before:

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