The other side was dark, and smelt like a combination of sewerage, oil, and rotting flesh. Trace didn't exactly want to bottle the smell and use it as a perfume. There was a dim green light in the corner, emanating from the clunky old computer screen there. That was where the others had entered the Code. Where they'd shut down the Grievers. Where they'd killed the maze.
Woah.
"What the hell happened to you?" Thomas asked, his eyes widening at Trace's appearance. She supposed it was a little shocking; she was coated in head to toe with Griever slime. Minho turned around to face her and fell immediately into a fit of laughter.
"I'd slim it if I were you, Minho. I'm gonna have hair gel for weeks at this rate. I'll be the Pantene Queen in no time."
That shut Minho up.
But not Thomas.
"Seriously, though, what happened?"
Trace rolled her eyes. "One of the Grievers thought I looked like a mattress or something. Decided to sleep on me."
"You got squished," Newt corrected her.
"I got squished," she agreed.
"And you just about suffocated and died," he added.
"And now I have a newfound respect for mattresses. It was a learning experience."
Newt's only response was an incredibly sassy eye-roll. So sassy that she was worried Minho might start a fight over it in order to preserve his title as 'the sassy one'. Fortunately, he was distracted by the growing number of Gladers arriving in the room with them. He started counting.
"Twenty-two," he muttered.
"The rest?" Thomas asked, as if they might just have decided to hang out in the maze a little longer.
"Half of us." Newt's voice was fainter now as reality sunk in. "Dead."
An heavy silence flooded the room; the news was a lot to take in. Half of the group had died so that the rest could stand in this room right now. And it could have just as easily been the other way around.
Minho cleared his throat. "You know what?" he said. "Half might've died, but half of us shucking lived. And nobody got stung- just like Thomas thought. We've gotta get out of here."
Newt nodded, looking more determined now. "Let's get out of here. Right now."
"Where do we go?" Minho asked, looking to Thomas for information.
Thomas pointed to the back of the room, away from where they'd entered. "I heard a door open down there," he said.
"Well, let's go," Minho urged, walking purposefully in that direction. Into the darkness.
Newt stayed behind, gesturing for the others to go first so that he could follow. Thomas, Chuck and that other girl stayed behind too. Trace waited with them, feeling the adrenaline wearing off and pain setting in. She hadn't been able to feel it until then, but a deep stab to the shoulder, multiple gashes across the width of her back, a re-opened cut across her hip and countless other bruises and cuts all over her body were all beginning to take their toll. She was exhausted.
"You look like klunk, Ace. What's your...? Bloody hell, is that blood?"
Trace laughed at that. Bloody hell was an accurate description of how she felt. Newt stepped towards her, squinting at her shoulder in the dim light. "Ace, your shoulder is gushing!"
"Why, thank you."
"Not a compliment." Newt pressed both his hands over the hole in her shoulder and Trace yelled out.
YOU ARE READING
Subject A250: The Fangirl (COMPLETED)
Fanfiction--Book one in the Subject A250 series-- She's read the books. She's seen the movies. She knows all there is to know about the storyline. Except for her role in it.
