Eternal Madness || The Death Cure || Minho

04 - Maybe Remembering Isn't That Great

"What?" Frypan asked. Everyone else turned to stare at the blue eyed girl.

"WICKED is good," she repeated, much louder, turning in her seat to meet the others' gazes. "Of all the things I could've written on my arm when I first woke up from my coma, I chose those three words. I keep thinking about it, and there has to be a reason for that. I say we just shut up and do what the man says. We can only understand this with our memories back."

"I agree!" Aris shouted, much louder then seemed necessary.

The room broke into a flurry of arguments that I was apart of. It seemed that most of Group B was on Teresa's side which angered me. They seemed more naïve then ever.

"Silence!" Rat Man roared, pounding his fist on the lectern. He waited for everyone to quiet down before he continued. "Look, no one's going to blame you for the mistrust you feel. You've been pushed to your physical limits, watched people die, experienced terror in its purest form. But I promise you, when all is said and done, none of you will look back-"

"What if we don't want to?" Frypan called out. "What if we don't want our memories back."

Rat Man sighed. "Is it because you really have no interest in remembering, or is it because you right trust us?"

"Oh, I can't imagine why we wouldn't trust you," Frypan replied.

"Don't you realize by now that if we wanted to do something to harm you, we'd just do it?" The man looked down at the lectern, then back up again. He seemed to make up his mind in those quick seconds. "If you don't want to remove the Swipe, don't do it. You can stand by and watch the others."

Everyone became silent as they thought about his words. My choice was clear as day, I didn't want my memories back. But what about my friends? What did they want to do? If they did want their memories back, I wouldn't blame them; for me, remembering hasn't done me so well.

Rat Man began walking toward a door at the back of the room. When he reached it he turned to face us. "You really want to spend the the rest of your lives having no memory of your parents? Your family and friends? You really want to lose that chance to hold on to at least the few good memories you may have had before all this began? Fine with me. But you might never have this opportunity again."

I stood up, everyone's eyes landed on me. "We have new family and friends now. We have new good memories. Remembering our parents and those other memories won't make us happy, all it will do is remind us how bad our lives suck right now."

"Maybe that's what you need," Rat Man said before leaving the room.

I rolled my eyes and sat back down with a huff. As soon as I relaxed into my seat Thomas spoke,"There's no way we do this. No way."

He was taking to Minho and Newt but I felt like this conversation applied to me too, so I inserted myself into it.

"Amen. Even if I did trust those shanks, why would I want to remember? Look what it did to Ben and Alby," Minho said.

I suddenly came to the realization that lots of the boys I knew in the Maze were gone. Alby, Ben, Winston, Clint, Jeff, and even Gally. They were dead. I had more deaths on my shoulders then anyone else here.

"Anne, Anne!"

I looked up from my daze to meet Minho's dark eyes.

"You in on the plan or what?"

"Uh, sorry, what was the plan?" I asked clearing my throat.

He explained to me what I had missed and I agreed with them 100%. It seemed that we were the only ones in the room that thought this way. It made me sad to think that my other friends from Group B were more trusting in WICKED then I wanted to believe.

•••••••

We all entered a room filled with several beds each with a menacing, foreign-looking contraption of shiny metal and plastic tubes in the shape of a mask hanging over it. It looked like the torture devices I was thinking about earlier.

Rat Man gestured toward the beds. "This is how we're going to remove the Swipe from your brains. Don't worry, I know these devises look frightening, but the procedure won't hurt nearly as much as you might think."

"Nearly as much?" Frypan repeated. "I don't like the sound of that. So it does hurt, is what you're really saying."

"Of course you'll experience minor discomfort- it is a surgery. We'll be removing a small device from the part of your brain devoted to memory. But it's not as bad as it might sound, I promise," he explained before pressing buttons on the machine.

"Wait a second," Teresa said. "Is this going to take away whatever's in there that lets you control us, too?"

Flashes of when I was forced to kill Josh appeared in my head. That horrible thing WICKED made me do caused my life to be more of a living hell then it was before.

"Is everything going to be out of there? Everything?"

Rat Man nodded. "Everything except that tiny device that allows us to map your killzone patterns. And you didn't have to say what you're thinking because I can see it in your eyes. No, you, Thomas, Aris, and Anne won't be able to do your little trick anymore. We did turn it off temporarily, but now it'll be gone forever. However, you'll have your long-term memory restored, and we won't be able to manipulate your minds. It's a package deal, I'm afraid. Take it or leave it."

I was engulfed in my own thoughts about WICKED taking away whatever controls us, but what brought me back was one word that stung me like a bee.

"Some of you are immune to the Flare," Rat Man told everyone. "But... Some of you aren't. I'm going to go through the list, please do your best to take it calmly."

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I have returned.

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