We are sitting in a small bunker next to the room where Jorge got the food from. Our sandwiches are gone because of the thunderstorm, so that's my first meal since breakfast.
The others obviously are as hungry as I am and Jorge has to get two portions for all of us.
Thomas, Brenda and me are sitting away from the rest of the group, leaning against the cold stone wall. Thomas is sitting between us and Brenda is very close to him.
Their knees keep touching and I don't know if it's on purpose or not. I can see that Thomas is quite uncomfortable with the situation. He keeps looking at me like I'm going to explode any second.
I never had the chance to feel jealous before. There weren't any other girls in the maze and Thomas made it obvious that he only wants me.
I'm not planning on acting like a jealous girlfriend just because Brenda is touching him. If he's bothered by it than he should do something about it.
I'm not. Just by the way he's looking at me, I can sense that he's not into Brenda. I don't even know if she fancies him.
Anyway. Jorge gave Thomas and a few of the other boys a weapon. Teresa and I didn't get one. I don't like them anyway, I'm better with knives.
"Sooo, where did you guys come from?" Brenda interrupts the silence.
"Wicked." I give back shortly.
"Oh. So you're immunes?"
"A few of us are. Not everyone."
"But you are?" she points at me.
"Yes."
"And Thomas."
"I am." Thomas answers her.
"My brother was immune too." she suddenly says, her eyes looking down full of sadness.
"Your brother?" I ask carefully.
"Yeah. Wicked took him. They didn't want me."
"I'm sorry." I say.
She turns her gaze towards Thomas again.
"You remind me of him, you know. He was just like you. Maybe not exactly, but you would have liked each other."
Oh. That's why she's so clingy around him. She doesn't fancy him, she likes him because he reminds her of her brother.
Thomas looks at her surprised. "What was he like?" His voice is quiet.
She smiles at a memory "He liked to play the hero too."
I chuckle and she smiles at me.
"He was smart. And his friends meant the world to him." Brenda turns away from us slightly to eat up her food.
"Sounds like you." I poke with my finger against Thomas's chest.
He quickly takes my hand and pulls me closer to him. A small smile is on his lips as he looks at my face.
I stare right back at him and admire his face. Every detail about him is perfect. His nose, his eyes, his lips...especially his lips.
Eventually we both look at each others eyes at the same time.
I blush at the eye contact. He keeps looking at me dreamily.
Bumm!
Suddenly we hear the bunker collapsing around us. The small place between our friends and us isn't there anymore. All I can see is dust and falling stones.
Thomas immediately takes my hand and presses me against him while shielding my head. I'd like to Not use him as a human shield, but his grip on me is to tight.
Brenda screams at us to follow her into a certain direction. I can't see where she's pointing at because my view is blocked by Thomas.
I her her footsteps against the stone ground. After a second I'm being pulled away by Thomas. We are holding hands while we run.
The whole bunker collapses behind us and I see stones falling down to my sides. I hope Newt and the others made it out in time. Otherwise... No, I'm not even going there. They made it. Hopefully.
Soon we leave the bunker hehind us. It's silent again. And dark. I think we are deep in the tunnels under the ground. It's creepy in here.
We look around for a few minutes and let our eyes adjust to the small light of Brendas and Thomas's flashlights.
"Stay close to me, the cranks down here are gonna be full term." Brenda tells us quietly without turning around.
Out of reflex I pull Thomas closer to me by his arm. Not that I could protect him from cranks, he has the gun. Now I'd like to have one myself.
But at least I have my knife. And I can run. Not like the runners but still fast.
"How do we get back to our friends?" Thomas asks.
"Since we can't go back, we have go through the tunnels and get into the part of the city where other people live."
"Other people?" I ask her.
"Like us. Well, like Jorge and me not immunes."
"Are you infected?"
"Probably. Everyone is." she answers me casually.
I don't do anything. I know she can't infect me, because I'm immune.
"How much time do you have?" Thomas asks Brenda.
"I don't know. It's different for everyone."
That's why they wanted to come with us. Maybe they think the right arm can help them. But there isn't a cure yet, right?
"You guys where in the maze right? I heard alot about it, creepy stuff mostly."
"Yeah, we were."
"Can you tell me about it?"
I swallow a sudden lump away and look over at Thomas whose face darkened visibly.
Back there I wasn't doing very well. It feels like we were in the maze long ago but we only escaped a few days ago. It's all still fresh. I can feel it.
The darkness, the pain and especially the feeling of being lost. We weren't exactly lost in there. Now we are. But now I feel free at least. I can make my own decisions.
"We were send there with erased memory. We were trapped. Thomas's brother and I were the last people sent there. The others have been in the maze for years."
"There were those things in the maze, uh grievers. They are like giant spiders...who kill you."
Brenda looks disgusted "I hate spiders."
"Me too."
"And you and the other girl were there alone with all those boys?" she asks me unbelieving.
"No, Teresa got us out of it. I was the only girl."
She looks at me shocked.
"Most of them were alright. And I had Thomas and my friends around me all the time." I assure her.
I glance towards Thomas who has a small smile on his face.
-
We walk through the tunnels in silence for a while. It's not as bad as I thought down here. There were no cranks yet.
I got used to the flashlights and the darkness around them. Sometimes I flinch when I see clothes and other stuff on the ground, but other than that it's bearable.
When we are walking for about an hour, we suddenly hear something breaking behind us. We turn around immediately, but there is nothing. Only darkness.
"Maybe an old lamp or something fall down and broke." Brenda says hesitantly.
"Do you really believe that?" Thomas asks her without turning his gaze away from the corridor.
She doesn't answer his question "Let's just hurry up a bit."
I can hear the fear in her voice. I hope we won't find out who broke the glass.
After what Brenda said, we all walk a little faster. My feet hurt from the last couple days. We haven't really had a chance to take a break.
There it is again. Something behind us shatteres.
"What was that?" I say. I know they can't tell me either.
"No idea." Thomas mutters beside me. "But I'm sure it's not a coincidence."
"Me too." Brendas voice is loud and I flinch a little.
"Be quiet!" I whisper yell in her direction.
"This is a one way tunnel, if there is something hunting us we can't hide anyway."
What scares me is that she says 'something' and not 'someone'. I have goosebumps.
"I wanna leave this tunnels as soon as possible."
"So do I."
I feel Thomas stiffing beside me.
"Did you hear that?" he whispers.
"No..." I say slowly. I'm so scared.
"I swear I heard footsteps." he says still looking at the darkness.
"That's enough." Brenda suddenly says, not even trying to be quite. She takes her flashlight and points it directly at the corridor in front of us.
There he is. Or it. Only ten meters in front of us stands someone. His face is full of dirt, so are his clothes.
His eyes are dark and his mouth is opened. There are black veins all over his face and body. His posture is weird. He leans onto his left leg as if the right one doesn't exist.
His arms are hanging down lifeless. And-I shiver -he doesn't have a nose.
The three of us are too surprised to move. After two seconds of silence the thing begins to scream. There's no sound coming out of his mouth, but he is screaming.
And now he's running. In our direction. Finally we move. Away from the crank.
Thomas pulls Brenda with him. I'm at the front. We're running for our lives.
"RUN!"
"WE HAVE TO HIDE SOMEWHERE!" I scream at them.
"I'M NOT SURE BUT I MIGHT HAVE AN IDEA." Brenda screams back at me.
I move to the side to let her go to the front and show us the way.
"FOLLOW ME." as if that's not obvious.
We run as fast as we can and the crank seems to have trouble following us. When I turn around I see that he's no longer alone.
There are two other cranks behind him. And they are screaming too.
Finally Brenda takes a turn and we run down another corridor. There are doors on each side of us. She opens the second one and runs inside.
Thomas closes the door behind us as soon as we are inside.
The room is small. There is only a table, standing in front of the wall. Brenda crawls under the table. Unsure I follow her.
How is a table supposed to hide us? But when I follow her I see a small opening in the wall with a gitter in front of it.
Brenda kicks against the gitter and it falls of. She crawls inside. I follow her. Behind me Thomas is making his way into the vent too.
There isn't so much space and I'm being pushed against both Thomas and Brenda. It doesn't bother me so much.
I lean over Thomas's legs, take the gitter and put it in front of the vent again.
"If you make any noise we're dead." Brenda whispers for the first time since we entered the tunnels.
I just nod, too scared to say anything.
I reach out for Thomas's hand and we intertwine our fingers. His touch calms me down a bit. But I don't like the idea of him being closest to the vent opening.
"Can we switch places?" I whisper in his ear. I rather have me dying than him.
"Nope." he says sternly. His grim on my hand tightens.
"But you'll be the first one who gets attacked if you stay there."
"And that's exactly why I'm staying here." he mutters.
Seems like he doesn't want me to die either. I can't help the warm feeling in my stomach at his words.
"If they find us you both die. Now shut up." Brenda whispers.
Dying. There was a time in my life I would have been happy about her words. But right now I want to live. I want a life with Thomas. Somewhere safe.
Maybe we could live in a big house with a garden and a cute little puppy. I know Thomas is a dog person. And maybe just maybe we could have children someday.
It's weird to think about that stuff in a situation like this. And besides the fact that we might die today, I'm still a teenager. I can't seriously be thinking about children.
Footsteps interrupt my thoughts. They must be close. Not in this room but definitely outside of the door.
I press my eyes shut and pray for them to stay away. But I was never lucky.
Soon I hear the door being opened.
"Where are youu?" a creepy voice says.
"We are going to kill you people. We will eat you." another voice.
Eat us? That's fucking cannibalism. Probably the most disturbing thing in the whole world. Amazing.
After a while the footsteps become quiter. They are leaving. Thank god.
They don't close the door but I think they are gone. We wait another fifteen minutes. It's completely silent.
"I think we can go now." Brenda says.
Thomas nods and opens the vent. He crawls out of it and stands beside the table. He left his gun under the table accidentally. I take it as I crawl out of the vent.
"Got you!" suddenly the weird voice is back. I see the cranks jumping inside the room. One of them attacks Thomas, the other one takes his arms and pulls him out of the room.
"Thomas!"
It all happens so fast. I don't really have time to react. I can't see them anymore. Thomas is gone too. But I can her them.
I quickly get up and run out of the door. Brenda follows me. There at the end of the corridor lays Thomas. A crank is on top of him.
Thomas pushes the crank away from him, just to be attacked by the other one.
I take the weapon in both of my hands and I'm aiming at the crank in front of Thomas with the rifle.
I wait till he's no longer close to Thomas and shoot. It makes me stumble a bit but the crank collapses onto the ground.
I don't ask myself how I did that. Instead I aim at the other crank and shoot him in the head. He falls onto the other crank. Thomas is standing there trying to catch his breath.
He looks between me and the cranks shocked. One hand is on his chest. Slowly I begin to smile.
Brenda is standing next to me. She looks at the cranks too. "Shit Ruby."
I grin. Thomas comes running over and hugs me tightly.
"What can't you do?" he says into my ear.
"There's nothing." I say jokingly.
"I believe it. Ruby, you just saved my life. Again. Thank you."
"You're welcome." I say, still grinning widely.
A/n:
It's pretty much like the book version but yeah
Hope you enjoyed xx