The Wounded Healer

Chapter 18: Pretty Noses

The Underneath was a dank, miserable place. Evelyn almost wanted to turn off her flashlight and just walk in utter darkness to being able to see what was around her. The walls and floors were dull gray, nothing more than painted concrete, streaks of water trickling down the sides here and there. They passed a door every few dozen feet, but most of them were locked when she tried them. Dust coated the long-dark light fixtures on the ceiling, at least half of them busted, jagged glass screwed into rusty holes.

All in all, the place had the feel of a haunted tomb. The Underneath was as good a name as any. Evelyn wondered what the underground structure had been built for in the first place. Walkways and offices for who knew what kinds of jobs? Paths between buildings on rainy days? Emergency routes? Escape routes for things like massive sun flares and attacks from crazy people?

Evelyn and Tessa walked in silence for a while. Both of them wrapped in their own thoughts. Her brain was still having trouble wrapping around some of the things Teresa told her. Evelyn was thinking about it, and even if she had her memories, they wouldn't be much use, considering she was locked in a stone tower for her entire life. 

They kept walking, eventually they came to an intersection. The girls stopped and looked both ways, and then in front of them. They glanced at each other, and shrugged.

"No idea where this Marcus is?" Teressa asked. 

"No...Jorge never told me that part. Just that we needed to find him." 

"And I have no memory of the city. We weren't ever aloud to leave the facility. I can show you on a map where cities are...but anything more detailed?" She shook her head in frustration. 

"Okay...well, we really just need to get back to the surface. We can find Marcus after that." Evelyn suggested. Teresa nodded. 

"Good that." 

"Okay. So left looks sketch, and it stinks. We can keep going straight or we can go right, which has lights..." 

"I vote right. Save the batteries." Teresa said. 

"Good as any. Lets go." 

The girls turned their flash lights off and continued down the hall.  They kept going, turn after turn, long tunnel after long tunnel. The slow but steady exercise took Evelyn's gloomy thoughts off slowly becoming a crank and all the miserable things that had happened to her. Her mind drifted into a half-daze, thinking about the Maze and the memories and Newt. Mostly about her and Newt. She missed him.

They had come to a weird large circular room with quite a few exits branching off to the left and right, more than she'd seen previously. It almost seemed like it could be a gathering place joined by tunnels from all the buildings.

"Is this the center of the city?" Evelyn asked, not really expecting an answer. 

"You're guess is as good as mine." Teresa shrugged. 

They slid down the wall, without needed to say anything. They pulled out a granola bar and their waters. Evelyn leaned her head back on the wall, slowly eating her granola bar. 

"Shuck. I'm so tired!" She whinned. 

"Same." 

"What I wouldn't give for a bed. And a hot shower!" 

"Same girl." 

A loud pop startled Evelyn, it sounded like a glass bulb breaking.

Teresa immediately shone her light back in the direction from which they'd come, but the hallway disappeared in shadow, empty except for a few ugly streaks of water on the walls, black on gray.