In this chapter, there is a kiss with Thomas, you may skip that part if you want the first kiss to be Newt because that's in a coming chapter. Thanks!
"'You're not ... her.' His voice, distant. A mere echo. 'You could never be her.'"
James Dashner, The Scorch Trials
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A screech from a small tunnel to your right made your ears perk. Then, a rat came out of the tunnel. Brenda let out a shaky exhale as the rat fell to the ground ungracefully.
It squeaked and squealed as it crawled around and then towards you. Brenda kicked it. "Ah... Jesus."
The rat crawled off and no more than two seconds later a hand reached out and grabbed it. A vines creature, attached to the walls, pulled itself from its roots. In a bone-chilling manner it ate the squealing rat from its hands as Brenda shone the flashlight on it.
Just then, another one of the creatures sensed it, and they all began running over, sniffing at the rat and fighting for it. You were scared, your legs locked in place as more than ten of the creatures appeared out of seemingly nowhere. Then, one of them came towards you from the other direction, it's mouth wide open and a weird goo glistening under the folds of vines and roots and possibly skin.
Thomas reached for Brenda's knife and slashed it across the face before running past it, you following behind.
It emitted a hoarse call, and all the creatures fighting looked up. Then, it looked back at you, and screamed. An awful, ear piercing screech that made your jaw clench. And you ran.
The flashlight beams flickered off of every wall, and you yelled many obscene things as you ran from those creatures.
When you reached the end of the tunnel, Thomas put his arm out to stop you from falling over the edge of a chasm. Two buildings leaned on each other higher up and Brenda seemed to notice.
"Come on, this way!" she shouted hurriedly. You looked down the tunnel to see a wave of the creatures, cranks, running after you. They emerged from the tunnel as you climbed higher and you swore you could almost feel their breath on your ankles as you tried to climb faster. The screams behind you were contorted in ways they shouldn't be if they were actually human. You climbed upwards through the rubble as a metal object flew down at you.
"Watch out!" Brenda called.
"A little late for that!" you said, groaning as you tried to force your body to keep moving. The adrenaline was kicking in though which gave you leverage over your incoming tiredness.
Then, a column collapsed as Thomas climbed through it below you. You managed to squeeze through and the cranks contorted their bodies in unnatural ways to try to do so as well.
You had made it to a leaning building. Brenda kicked a crank following you down the stairwell. as you climbed higher and higher, you could feel the leaning of the building. Brenda grabbed an old door's handle, her weight causing the door to swing open and she cried out as she fell. She landed on a glass pane almost parallel to the ravine below with a thud.
"Brenda!" Thomas yelled, as you stared in silent horror.
The glass had small cracks around where she was laying, this couldn't be good.
"Brenda? You okay?" Thomas called out as you quietly crept through the door panel and used all the muscles in your body to slide down to her.
"Yeah," she said from her spot on the glass. You could see as she pressed her hand against the glass that it caused more cracks to spiral in the glass.
"Don't. Move." you whispered to her. She nodded slightly.
You slid down further, latching onto a metal object before reaching an arm out to Brenda.
"Don't move!" Thomas yelled from above as Brenda tried to stand up on the glass anyways. You could hear the crunching as it began to crack under the weight of her even more. She reached out to grab your hand, but before she could a crank appeared at the door and fell down to where Brenda was.
In the midst of all the chaos, Thomas had slid down a little farther towards your position and Brenda. She was trying to hold the crank away from her so it couldn't bite her.
"Thomas, break the glass," you said.
"What?" he asked, shocked.
"Break the glass. Now!" you shouted.
He slid down the rest of the way, and you wrenched your hand around his as he kicked out the glass. It smashed and he caught Brenda with his free hand, holding his feet against the building's beams between the windows. The crank fell through and into the dust below as you held onto Thomas for dear life.
Brenda dangled for a second before Thomas, red-faced a weary hoisted her back up through the gap with pure adrenaline.
You began to make your way out of the building. Faster and more careful than your ever were the first time around.
When you reached solid ground, there was a strong urge to sit and take a few deep breaths. But before you could, Thomas pointed out something.
"Hey, you hear that?" Thomas asked, making sure he wasn't going insane.
"Yeah, it sounds like... people?" you said.
Brenda sat down on the ground. Exactly what you wanted to do.
"You alright?" Thomas asked her.
She pulled up her pant leg and you saw a bite mark as well as a deep slice through her skin on her calf.
"Shit." Thomas cursed.
"Brenda," you whispered.
"Yeah, yeah, I know." If you hadn't learned anything by now, it was that it was not to let those things touch you. She had been bitten. This means she would end up like Winston.
"I have extra bandages if you need it." you said, thinking back to Winston. You tossed them to her and watched her wrap her leg up. A glazed look came over your eyes as you remember what he had told you. Thomas watched with a blank face. He seemed to be thinking the same thing as you.
"Thanks, Let's just go find Marcus," Brenda said, finishing wrapping her leg and getting up. She dusted her pants off before staring at you with a hard gaze.
"What?" you asked.
"You're bleeding, y/n," Brenda says.
"Oh this? That's normal." you say nonchalantly. "Probably just stretched it a little too far."
"I hate to say it, y/n. But I'm mildly certain that that isn't normal." Thomas said. You scoffed.
"You're telling me that?" you asked.
"Still, we should change the bandages, if you have more."
"No, no no no no no. I'm not doing that again."
"Come on, y/n, while we have a bit of time?" Thomas pleaded with you before changing his tone to commanding.
You sat down and shuffled through your pockets, finding the last bit of gauze and bandages. You held them out to Thomas and began to remove your jacket. Sure enough, the gun wound was still there, bleeding. You hadn't changed these bandages for two days and it was going to be painful.
But better now than never.
You began to unwrap it, hissing as each unstick caused more pain than the last. Soon, it became too much for you to handle and you were writhing as Thomas began to peel the bandages and gauze off. Brenda had to hold your hands as he unstuck the last bit over the wound. You were so done at that point.
"It's okay, it'll be fine," Thomas told you every five seconds.
He placed the fresh wrappings on, a little tighter than you had liked but nevertheless secure for now.
"It's looking better," Thomas said while holding your shaking arms. Your eyes were squeezed shut in an attempt to block out the pain.
"Mhm," you mumbled. You could taste the salty tears and you folded your lips inwards as the burning pain ran it's course. You heard Thomas sit down next to you. And footsteps trailed off into the distance as Brenda went to see what the voices were.
"Hey, it's okay. You've been so strong." Thomas said lowly. He kissed the back of your left hand as he sat beside you and you leaned your head on his shoulder. He wrapped his strong arms around you as you sat there for a moment. Both catching your breath. It was peaceful.
"I'm sorry," you whispered.
"It's okay, we all have our weak points." Thomas comforted you. You lifted your head up and finally opened your eyes. Everything was tinted a slight blue tone from your eyes being squeezed shut for a time. Thomas turned to look at you and you stared back into his magical deep brown eyes. It was going to be okay.
He let go of your hands and wiped your tears away with his thumbs. Then, he gave you a small smile. He glanced down at your lips as you shifted around and grabbed his hands again to squeeze as the last bits of pain faded to the back of your mind again.
(kiss scene! ✨ skip if you want the first kiss to be Newt)
"Thomas-" you began but he leaned in and kissed you. Your eyes blew wide before you relaxed and gripped his hands a little tighter. It was going to be okay. You would find the others.
He pulled away after a second and studied your expression. After a long while of silence you began to laugh. It was somewhat contagious because before long, Thomas was laughing too.
"Don't worry," he said as if to reassert your thoughts. "We'll find them."
You just smiled and giggled a bit more before pressing another small kiss to his lips and then one more to his cheek.
(end kiss scene)
"Ready to go?" he asked.
"Ready as I'll ever be." And with that you both followed Brenda, clinging to each other's hands, out into the streets.
There were people there, dressed in many layers of dusty clothing. There were people cooking things and people selling things. It looked barren but at the same time, it was bustling. You heard the thrumming of a beat as you approached a certain building.
A lady walked up behind you with a swaggering step. "You here for the party?" she asked.
"Uh- no. We're here for Marcus, this is his place isn't it?" Brenda asked.
"This is, my place." a guy said from around the corner. He stepped through a curtain and you managed to slip away from the group and slip inside without being seen. You were looking for them, well, you wanted to see Newt the most.
You hunted through the crowd of people, wandering aimlessly. You then wandered back to the entrance to see Thomas and Brenda drinking a weird liquid. Thomas looked frazzled and like his mind was clouded over. Brenda looked sort of okay. They agreed to split up to try and find the others. You followed Thomas from the shadows, you didn't know what he drank but you tried to act like you were part of the crowd. You saw a crank being held on ropes as a guy was taunting it. He held up a gun before shooting it in the head.
The guy watched Thomas and laughed at him. Then, you saw Brenda walk up to Thomas.
You couldn't hear what they were talking about. You didn't like her that close to him though. He looked delusional. She pulled him closer. And just when you though he wasn't going to, she kissed him.
It was too much for you and you ran off before hearing what he had said. You found a spot where there wasn't as many people and before you could help it the salty tears were freely flowing down your face. In a mixture of anger and sadness, it felt like half of your heart had been smashed to pieces.
You saw someone run towards you. You looked up from the huddle you were in, and it turned out to be Newt.
"Newt?" you asked. You could see his face, worried and panic-stricken.
"I'm here, I got you." he said as you closed your eyes and let him wrap his arms around you.
"I'm sorry..." you cried.
"Shhh... love," he whispered through the loud music and bustling of the party. "It's okay. It'll be okay." And maybe it was from over-exertion or something else, but you fell asleep then and there as Newt held you in a small corner away from the hustle and bustle of party-goers.
You dreamt of your dad, and your time spent at WCKD.
And when you woke up, Newt was still there with you.
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