Subject of the Flame | Maze Runner [2]

TWELVE

Electra groaned as she was shot back to reality. Her stomach growled as she remembered the pasta from her dream. Even if the food was as bad as the boy was saying, she would still kill to be able to eat it.

She noticed Minho's bed across from hers was empty, so she looked up at the bottom of the top bunk and tried to form coherent thoughts about her dream. It'd been so vivid, but she wouldn't be surprised if in her state she'd completely made it all up. Still, she couldn't get the image of the boy out of her head. Who was he? It wasn't anyone she knew since she couldn't recognize him.

But maybe she did know him. Maybe he was a Glader who had died before she could meet him. Or maybe it was the boy from the Group B Maze, the one who'd had the same role as her. The other Variable. Electra felt sick from the possibility of knowing a boy who had probably died so gruesomely.

Another day passed, and Electra could barely get out of bed. She thought her body was used to thriving on low food due to her three years in the Maze, but the effect of no food at all was something she couldn't have prepared for.

On the morning of the third day, however, she forced herself to get out of bed. Her hand trailed the wall as she made her way to the bathroom. Only a couple of Gladers chose to stay in her room. The rest of them didn't like her to the extent of clumping their way into the overcrowded other dorm room. Sometimes being disliked had its perks.

Electra closed the bathroom door behind her, using all her weight to shut the door. She went over to the mirror, leaning against the porcelain sink and staring at her reflection. Through a starving haze, she couldn't even recognize herself. She turned on the sink and gulped down a few handfuls of water. The water never satisfied her, though. It just barely kept her alive.

She heard excited chattering just outside the bathroom and furrowed her eyebrows. At first, she thought she'd hallucinated the sound, but when she opened the bathroom door she saw the Gladers scrambling out into the common area, where she could hear more boys talking happily.

Electra slowly made her way over to the door leading to the common area. Her eyes opened wide when she saw an entire buffet sitting on the various tables. The Gladers jumped into the food right away, some of them eating as fast as they could while others gawked at the food as if it was all a mirage. Electra suspiciously made her way over to the closest table and grabbed a bun. She sniffed it, and her stomach growled with such intensity that she wanted to devour the entire table.

Instead, she took small bites. She knew eating too much too fast would only make her sick so she tried to pace herself.

Just then, Electra noticed something white in the corner of her eye. She slowly turned, only to see Janson sitting with his feet propped up on a wooden desk as his eyes skimmed through the pages of a book. Electra dropped her bun to the floor.

She felt the urge to grab her knife from her room and threaten Janson. As far as she could tell, he was defenceless. But, before she could do anything, Minho came up to her. He placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Whatever you're thinking, don't bother. There's a weird invisible wall separating us from him."

Electra groaned, before taking a second bun off the table. "Makes sense. Of course the coward hides behind an invisible wall."

Minho let out a chuckle, before patting her on the back. "I'm going to wake up Thomas. See what he thinks about this whole thing. Whatever Rat Man is doing here, it can't be good."

Minho went off to the boys' dorm room, and Electra stood by herself. She wolfed down her second bun before biting down on an apple. Its sweetness delighted her tongue, and she wanted to sit here and eat apples all day.

The Gladers around her seemed unbothered by Janson's presence. They mostly ignored him as they ate their food. Newt, however, stood off to the side near the farthest wall, his arms crossed in front of his chest as he glared over at the man. Electra grabbed another apple off the table before making her way over to him.

"You know there's food on these tables, right?" Electra's tone was mocking, and Newt shifted his eyes from Janson to her.

"Not now, Electra."

Electra tossed the apple at Newt, but it merely hit his chest and dropped to the floor. "Well, if you're just going to stand here like an idiot, I'm going to try and break that invisible wall."

Just as she turned, Newt grabbed onto her arm and pulled her backwards. "No. Electra, you're the bloody idiot if you think approaching him is a smart idea."

"What? Are you scared?" Electra scoffed.

"Maybe fear and lunacy are the same things to you, but they aren't to me," Newt snapped, letting go of her arm. "Use your head for once. Think. There's a reason he's behind that wall."

"So what? You think we should allow him to just sit there? You're not at all curious?" Electra caught a glimpse of Janson licking his finger before casually flipping a page of his book. He read as if none of the Gladers were in the room.

"They have the upper hand here, not us. We need to wait and hear him out."

"Uh, no. Newt, they starved us for three days–"

"Exactly. They can do whatever they bloody want to us. Just like Aris said; we need to figure out their plan."

Newt crossed his arms stubbornly, and Electra mirrored him. He was completely unmoving in his opinion, so Electra grumbled before turning around and seeing Thomas leaving his dorm room. The boy wandered around aimlessly, in awe of everything around him. When his eyes locked on Janson, Thomas sped up and stormed over to the man in the white suit.

When Thomas crashed into the invisible wall, Electra took it as an opportunity to make her way over and crash her fists against the wall.

"Hey! What the hell is going on here?" Electra yelled, and Thomas joined her in hitting the wall. "You guys are real assholes, you know? And cowards; hiding yourself behind this invisible wall."

Janson slowly looked up from his book, tilting his head ever so slightly at Thomas before shifting his gaze to Electra. Something clicked behind the man's eyes, and his annoyance turned to pure anger.

"How many times do I have to repeat this?" Janson folded the corner of his page before closing the book. "We still have forty-seven minutes before I've been authorized to implement Part Two of Phase Two of the Trials. Please show me your patience and leave me alone. You've been given this time to eat and replenish yourselves, and I strongly suggest you take advantage of it."

Electra wanted to hit the wall even harder. She wanted to destroy the barrier between her and Janson. She wanted to grab the man by his pristine white collar and demand answers. But, she wasn't strong enough. She doubted she'd be able to break the wall even in a healthy state, much less a starved one. So, Electra gave the glass-like wall one more punch before retreating to the farthest table away from Janson.

Thomas joined her at the table, and she gave him a quick nod. This table held less food than the ones near the middle, but a platter of dried fruit made Electra's mouth water. It was only when she bit into a piece of dried peach did she realize what Janson had said.

Phase Two? Electra's heart sank to the bottom of her stomach. Another test? She tried to find Minho in the crowd. They wouldn't make her forget about him, would they?

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A/N: happy saturday !! i ALMOST missed updating this week lol but i got smth uploaded so let's goooo! hope everyone is doing well. the next couple of chapters should be pretty exciting yayayaya!! tysm for reading