The glue that dried

The crank that died

    Newt was dying out there. Losing his mind, going crazy. He's not immune, he never was, never will be.
    "I'll leave you alone for a bit." Minho said, his voice cracking in the process. I simply nodded into the dirt, not looking up.
   I laid there for several minutes, trying to calm down. After about thirty minutes, I sat up, squinting into the sudden light. People had already started making small shacks and fires. I stood up, suddenly embarrassed from sitting in the dirt sulking while people were working. I walked over to Thomas, he had taken control of people.
    "What do I need to do?" I asked when he saw me coming.
    "We need some more wood for homes, so you can go with the others looking for some." He nodded to a couple of people in the distance pulling some wood off of trees. As I was making my way over there, I could feel Thomas' gaze linger on my back. "Hey, Sonya." He called. I turned, Thomas had tears welling up in his eyes, and he was trying to hold them back. "I'm- I'm sorry." He said, and turned to walk away. That was weird. What did he do? He must know something I don't.
    I continued walking towards the others, seeing who they were. It was Minho, Gally, Harriet, and a few other immunes.
   "Hey there." Harriet said and came to greet me. Her face was flushed and her hands were red. "Come to help?"
   "Yeah. What is there to do?" I asked.
   "Well right now we're trying to get this tree down but it's uh- it's a bit stubborn." She said, nodding to an oak tree that everyone was working on.
   "Okay. I'll help." I said. And we walked over to the tree. Gally handed me a makeshift axe and I joined the others on working on getting the tree out of the ground.
   After an hour, the tree finally came down, and we all cheered and danced around.
   "Come on, it's getting dark, we need this back at camp." Minho said, and we all grabbed the tree and drug it back to camp.

   "Here you go." Harriet said, and handed me a bowl of soup and we sat down around the fire. All the work was done for today, do we finally got to relax. Some people had already gone to bed, while the rest of us sat around some fires eating and talking.
   "Thanks." I said, and took a bite of the meat in the bowl.
   "I like it here." Harriet said, looking around.
   "Yeah. It's not too bad. No flares, WICKED, or heat."
   "And no Cranks." The mention of Cranks made me stop cold. I knew Newt was a Crank, but that didn't mean I had to accept it.
   "Yeah." I said, and kept eating.
   "I'm sorry about your brother, Sonya." She said quietly.
   "It's okay. Some people are immune, some aren't." I said, trying not to think about it.
   "You're not okay, are you?" Harriet asked, looking at me.
    "No." Was all I said.