The New Distance [The Scorch Trials Book]

t h r e e

teenage waste // blackbear

Three days.

Three freaking days without any food. On the second day I was almost convinced WICKED wanted us to die by starvation. But then Newt was always beside me to remind me that wasn't the case.

People licked their lips a lot. They grabbed at their stomachs, pushed on them, as if trying to calm the hunger inside them. And unless they were going to the bathroom to use it or to get a drink, the Gladers didn't move at all. Like me, they just lay there on the bunk beds, limp. Skin pale, eyes sunken.

But Newt, though. Instead of sleeping in the boys' room like he should, he slept beside me in this other room. I didn't mind but I could tell Thomas wanted to stay here with us too but he would be wasting energy; even walking the small distance between here and there could tire us out immensely. I didn't even talk anymore, I was that hungry.

It was roughly midafternoon of the third day when a humming sound abruptly began from the common area. I felt the space beside me for Newt, he wasn't there. I hurriedly got up from my bed, a bit dizzy since I haven't done that in a while but I shrugged it off because something was clearly happening.

I took slow, small steps towards the doors leading to the common room because-those were the only movements I could manage. The door creaked open and the sight couldn't have surprised me more. There was a huge pile of food-fruits, vegetables and plastic packets-in the middle of the common area. I could see all of the Gladers helping themselves to the food, obviously, but I couldn't see Thomas. I walked over to the pile and picked up and apple and instantly bit into it.

"Oh my god." I moaned as the fruity flavor exploded in my mouth.

Newt suddenly came up to me with a half eaten orange in his grasp, I could only guess that the other half was already in his stomach. He smiled. "That was attractive."

I rolled my eyes at him as I took another bite. "I swear, I have never eaten such a delicious apple in my life."

He threw his head back as he laughed. "Well, I'm glad you've joined us."

"Where's Thomas?" I asked as I finished the apple and took another one from the pile.

"Still sleepin'" Newt said, furrowing his eyebrows at something behind me. I followed his gaze and turned around.

My apple dropped to the ground and my eyes widened. A large wooden desk had been placed opposite the door to the other dorm room. Behind the desk, a thin man in a white suit sat in a chair, his feet propped up and crossed at the ankles. The man was reading a book.

I stood there for a full minute, staring at the man casually sitting at the desk, reading. It was as if he'd been reading that way and in that very spot every day for his whole life. Thin black hair combed across a pale, bald head; a long nose, twisted slightly to the right; and shifty brown eyes darting back and forth as he read-the man somehow looked relaxed and nervous at the same time. And the white suit. Pants, shirt, tie, coat. Socks. Shoes. All white.

It was all ridiculously too familiar.

"Janson?" I couldn't stop myself from asking.

The man's head snapped up quickly, like he wasn't expecting me to have called him. I looked down at the apple I had dropped, it rolled a few feet in front of me before it stopped and bounced backward a little bit, indicating that there was something preventing the apple to go further. I walked catiously towards where the apple had stopped, observing carefully the seemingly empty space between me and him.