𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓛𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓭 𝓪𝓷𝓭 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓛𝓸𝓼𝓽 - ᴀ ᴍᴀᴢᴇ ʀᴜɴɴᴇʀ ꜰᴀɴꜰɪᴄ

Chapter Nineteen - Addy

My stomach learns an entire gymnastics as the pods open. Not a good one, apparently, seeming as the inhabitants of said stomach desperately climb my throat in an attempt to get free.

The only sensation in my entire body besides the nausea and Sonya's nails digging into my shoulder is dread.

The white chambers split into two like a giant egg hatching. The creatures that crawl out are definitely not chicks. Blubbery white-ish beige flesh wrinkles and lumps to form a vaguely humanoid figure, with four limbs that housed fingers and toes of varying and uneven lengths. The things glow with orange light shining out of perfectly spherical growths of translucent skin. It's polka dotted with the orbs, all over its body.

"What is that thing?" Minho shouts. His voice is almost buried in the wind as it grows, sending my hair whipping all over the place.

As knives protrude from the creatures' appendages, I am convinced that the Creators, WICKED, are addicted to creating death in physical form and then sending it to attack innocent children. We already have Cranks- I should know, being one of them- so why do we need more zombie creatures?

"Looks like Grievers 2.0," I mutter in answer.

One of them lets out a moan and is met with a chorus of equally disturbing war cries by its companions. And they charge.

Creatures swipe at us on every side, boxing both Group B and the Gladers in. My breath catches as a blade nicks the skin of my forearm. I kick it in the chest and duck as orange sparks burst from the orb my foot connected with. The thing stumbles back, just as I do the same.

My knees buckle beneath me and my head throbs. The whole world vanishes into a mass of blurs and twinkling stars in my vision. Pressure builds up inside my skull until I'm ready to burst. And then I do. I burst.

My fist moves on its own accord and barrels through a second sphere. The creature hisses in anguish, but it has no face nor mouth so I have no idea where the sound comes from. Not that I'm really there to think about it. My body is simply a home for the Flare and the Flare doesn't want its host to die, so it keeps me alive.

I thrash and kick and scream and punch and attack anything that glows, shattering the glass-like bubbles in my fists or crushing them beneath my feet. All around me, the other kids cry out in pain as the blades slice their skin, unable to make progress against the monsters. Thomas glances over to me, watching how weakened my creature is and noting how I take it down. Rather, how the Flare takes it down on my behalf. I'm a spectator in my own life.

"The bulbs!" My brother shouts. "Crush the bulbs!"

My muscles tense and I scream in agony as the Flare releases me from its control, a glitch in its imperfect system. Three or four more of the so called bulbs remain on the creature, but its weak. Very weak.

The monster moves back toward me slower this time, giving me a moment to collect myself. How thoughtful. I feel wetness slipping down my cheeks. Whether its tears or blood, I can't say. Likely both.

I pull my shoe off and use it as a weapon, smashing it on the bulbs to avoid using my bare hands to do so. There's already sand creeping down my socks so what does it matter if I get some in between my toes?

With a crackle, I take out two of the remaining spheres. The monster manages to cut my side and cheek, but nothing I can't deal with. Both hurt, but I try my best to ignore it. Without the Flare puppeteering my hands, I have to rely on my own survival instincts which are, to say the least, significantly less developed.

I scream as the monsters shoulder blade- not the bone, the literal metal blade- cuts my arm, but it gives me a perfect opening to shatter the last bulb, the one protruding from its neck like a goider. As the flesh slumps to the ground, no longer controlled by the light inside the orbs, I allow myself a sigh of relief and check on my wounds.

Just as I'm lifting the corner of my shirt to check the depth of the cut, a sharp pain erupts where a blade connects with the back of my neck. I whirl around to find another monster pursuing me. So much for taking out its brother. I kick at the bulb on its knee and fail to see the knife-laden arm swinging at me. Pressure slams into me and the air whooshes past my face. Then I'm on the ground and someone's on top of me.

"Newt, no!" The voice might be my brothers, maybe Minho's. Once again, the storm carries sound away from me or blurs it together in a mesh of syllables.

Newt. Newt's on top of me. He saved me from the blade plunging towards my heart and now he's breathing in the same oxygen as I am. Flare contaminated oxygen. 

*A/N whoops... *