27.4.19
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348
Thomas”
The sound waves vibrated his eardrums. He managed to open his eyes. It seemed his eyes were hundreds times heavier. He could feel his eyes twitched, but he couldn’t open them. He changed his focus to lift his finger and he wasn’t able. Apparently, he was trapped in his own body.
“Thomas, wake up!”
The sound was familiar to him. He knew someone who spoke. Aris, he was sure it was him. It made him even more want to open his eyes. Unfortunately, his strong desire wasn’t enough. Even after he gathered all of his strength, his body still stiffened. He couldn’t help, but used the one and only senses that still working, his ear. He kept listening.
“Thomas, wake up, you stick!” Aris tapped his shoulder, then squeezed it. He guaranteed that he wanted to wake up as much as Aris wanted him to.
He didn’t know what was happening to his body. Whether he was dreaming or living the real life, he wasn’t sure. Anyway, he believed in the second option. Aris’s squeeze felt so real. People could think the same when he was dreaming though. It was really confusing.
“Thomas, listen to me!” the air blew to his ear. Aris whispered near his ear, another proof that he wasn’t dreaming. “Don’t trust them! Not anyone of them. You know people you can trust, Thomas.”
If he was dreaming, he wanted to wake up immediately. If the paralysis was caused by sedation or a kind of bullet, just like happened to him several days previously, he hoped the effect of it ended quickly. Aris's statement raised so many question in his head, and a little worry. He might be able to kept the question, but he had no idea what to do with his worry.
"They’re coming.” Fear cracked his voice. He let go of Thomas’s hand. The sound of the footsteps barely heard, indicating Aris was leaving the room. Hesitant steps, as if he wasn’t sure which way to go.
The next moment happened so fast. Noise broke through the atmosphere in that room. Some people came up. Threatening steps against Aris’s quietness and hesitation. The air was getting strained by the seconds. When the gunshots appeared, then Aris whined in agonizing pain, Thomas understood the confusing situation had turned into the fear. The fear that caught him too.
Before he was pulled into the unconsciousness, he took a few second to think. He wasn’t dreaming. It was real. As the darkness ate him, fear and worry hugged him so tight. What happened to Aris?
***
Thomas woke up, still dizzy. His vision was blurry. The room was spinning around. His body wasn’t so weak, but that dizziness forced him to stay on the bed. He closed his eyes, hopping it would help him to manage the dizziness.
Several minutes passed, he opened his eyes. The room stopped moving. His eyes darted around, trying to gathered as much information as possible. It was odd that he didn’t find any medical stuff there, instead he was at the same white room with the glass wall on the front. Sphenson should have let some genius doctors dissected his head. Or it had happened. His brain had already taken out and all the procedure had been carried out so he had his brain back. No need to think how impossible it was, he touched his head. There was no surgical wound on his head. WICKED had not done something on him yet.
“We’re late, Thomas.”
Thomas turned to make sure Sphenson was the person who spoke. The WICKED’s leader showed from the door behind his bed, heading toward him with a desperate face. He sat on the edge of his bed. His eyes looked straight to the glass wall.
“The rest doctors we had went crazy. Flare has eaten their whole brains. Now they’re useless, just like the other Cranks whom exploded by The Right Arm.”
“If it is part of another dream—”
“No, Thomas,” Sphenson cut him off. He glared at Thomas still with his desperate face. “I ensure you, this definitely isn’t a dream. Our efforts must end in defeat. WICKED failed. Can’t believe flare won after all these sacrifices.” Sphenson shook. His gesture looked even more desperate.
Thomas wanted so bad to reply him, revealing that WICKED should have realized it earlier. They shouldn’t have done all their stupid trials. But, he shut his mouth up and kept listening.
“Some people in this world are lucky—yeah, I think that word can describe someone like you, Thomas. When we terribly worry about the flare, about when we’ll end up being cranks, some people like you can spend day after day thinking about the future.”
“You lost your memory of what happened to us in the Maze and Scorch.” This time, Thomas couldn’t hold back his words.
Sphenson shot him a glare. After his face drowned out by that desperate expression, he showed his smile. There was no empathy. There was no guilt he could see in his eyes. On the contrary, he saw his unresolved ambitions. With that, he concluded Sphenson’s smile as a threat.
“We had to do that, Thomas, to save the world from the flare. You understood that—you did support WICKED at first—if you can regain your memory.”
Thomas was too angry to respond him. He chose to be quiet.
“You know, our people have to end up with the flare eating our brains.” He glanced at Thomas. Sparks of anger flashed in his eyes. “You should have come earlier. That’s your destiny, saving the world from the flare. And you didn’t fulfill that. Not wrong if I say you’re so selfish.”
Thomas squeezed the sheet. The conversation was beyond his expectation. There was nothing he wanted to do, unless to stop listening to every single word of Sphenson. He knew that wasn’t the purpose of Sphenson meeting him in that room.
“What exactly do you want, Sphenson?”
Sphenson smiled to the glass wall ahead. “You don’t change, Thomas. I love how smart you are. This is what I want to tell you, what you guess about your friends, you’re not right at all. Some of your friends are here, Thomas.” He tilted his head, to face Thomas. Obviously, he waited for Thomas’s reaction.
Thomas stared flatly despite his mind reacted severely to Sphenson’s words. He found a piece of memory that he nearly forgot. Newt, Minho, and the others. Perhaps they saved him just before he got surgery. And he had no idea what happened after that until he stuck at that room. However, he wasn’t free from WICKED’s arm yet which meant … a horrible thought grew in his head, causing pain that he couldn’t hide.
“The best news you heard so far?”
Thomas focused his eyes on Sphenson’s until a few people dressed in black that walked past in front of the room interrupted him. If Sphenson didn’t mention it before, he would judge those people looked so weird. Their clothes were partially torn, their hair were messy, and there were some scars all over their faces and hands. Now he knew, those were infected people—in the final stage.
“They’re here, Thomas.” Sphenson got up. He made his way toward the door behind Thomas’s bed. Thomas peeped and saw Sphenson checked his watch. “Looking for you. They didn’t know this place will explode immediately. You have thirty minutes to look for them and get them out of this place.” As the last word came out, Sphenson disappeared.
Thomas didn’t waste time. He rushed, jumping down from the bed. He almost tripped over his own feet because he moved too fast. He gave himself a moment to gain his balance, then quickly headed to the door. It was locked. Of course, Sphenson was playing with him.
He turned around. That glass wall was the only way out. He could use the bed to break the glass. With all his strength, he pushed the bed. His first trial only made the glass wall vibrate, not break, not even crack. He didn’t give up though. He pulled back the bed to push it harder. A loud noise was heard when the glass broke into pieces. He carefully stepped on the broken glass.
At least six cranks headed from his right and left welcomed him. He suddenly backed away.
He didn’t intend to reenter the room, but took two pieces of the broken glass. He carefully grasped the broken glass so those wouldn’t hurt his palm. He turned to the left. As he strode closer to the cranks, he lifted his hand. The cranks weren’t afraid though. Instead, they came closer.
He used those broken glass as a shield even though truthfully he didn’t know what to do with those two pieces of the broken glass. All of a sudden, he remembered the moment Brenda and him were attacked by the crank in the underground passage, when he killed one of the cranks using a knife. His hands immediately trembled.
The cranks kept walking. Thomas had to do something or he would running out of time. So, hopping it would help, he tackled one of the cranks. He used two pieces of the broken glass to scratch the hands of the other two Cranks. Once the gap created, he ran away. Just a small scratch, he ensured himself.
He slowed his pace when he thought he was far enough from those Cranks. He started sweeping around by his gaze, searching for everything that might lead him to his friends. There was no trace or such. He only caught the noise which he thought came from the Cranks. No gunshoot. Nothing.
“NEWT! MINHO!” Thomas called out loud, hopping his friends would hear his voice.
“VINCE, HANS, THE RIGHT ARM. ANYONE, ANSWER ME!” Once again he called out loud.
Still no answer.
He kept walking. Now running. And his eyes were watching around. Irregularly, he called for his friends’s name. Yet he didn’t get any responses. That place was probabbly big enough with so many passages and rooms that he should explore. Meanwhile, his time was running out. Fear grew bigger in his chest as hopped shrank.
He stopped at the intersection. He wasn’t too tired. Neither he was confused to choose the way. Dizziness attacked his head. He’d been feeling bad, but ignored it. Now, it was to much. Not only dizziness, pain took over him. He couldn’t see anything clearly because the world started spinning around.
He knew he need to go as fast as possible, not wasting every single second he had. So, he made his move with his hand crept on the wall for support. A weird voice stopped him once again. A whine, scream ... seemed close to him.
He followed the noise. Not long until he found the source. He stood with his mouth agape. Eyes widened in surprise, worry, and fear. Heart was beating so fast that sickened his chest.
“Newt, Minho,” he muttered. Wanting to get a better vision, he stepped closer toward a room. Newt and Minho were there, fighting some Cranks whom hit them using a whip.
“Thomas,” Minho mouthed his name.
Thomas headed to the door, trying to open it. The door was locked up. He went back to the window. Unfortunately, he found nothing to break the glass. Instead, he got something different as he looked through the window. He saw there were only cranks who fought each othere. He blinked and Newt and Minho were back into his sight. No. He couldn’t let the cranks beat them.
He dropped two pieces of glass that he gripped before he used his fist to puch the window. It didn’t cause anything, unless pain. He tried harder. Still the glass didn’t even crack. He tried again, harder than ever. Finally, the glass broke into pieces. It was just a second before he realized something was wrong. There wasn’t Minho there. Neither Newt. He blinked, rubbed his eyes. This time, they didn’t come back. Hard to believe he’d just had a hallucination.
Thomas moved backward with unsteady pace. The wall behind him stopped him to go further. He closed his eyes in order to make the pain go. But it didn’t. World was spinning around. His head ached like hell. But, he had no time to waste. He forced himself to take a step at the time someone hit him from the side.
“Tommy,” that cheerful voice was so familiar.
Newt’s figure was blurry. He reached out, placing his hand on Thomas’s shoulder. Thomas didn’t allow himself to believe in what he was seeing and hearing. It could be another hallucination.
“Tommy, you alright?”
Thomas lifted his face up, staring at Newt’s figure. He wasn’t surprised as the figure turned into someone else.
“This isn’t real. This isn’t real.” Thomas mumbled as he got on his feet.
“What are you bloody talking about, Tommy?”
Thomas blinked his eyes and shook his head. He saw Newt right in front of him. The boy was gripping his shoulders so thight as if he would fall if the boy let his hands go. Second time he blinked, Newt turned into someone he didn’t know. His hallucination terrified him
“Newt?” Thomas sharpened his eyes. “It’s really you?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Newt. Who do you think I am? What the shuck is wrong with you? What did WICKED do to you?”
“Where are the others, Newt? We heve to find the otheres and get out of this shuckin’ place. Soon.” Thomas was about to run as Newt grasped his wrist.
“Slim it, Tommy. What happened?”
“We need to find the other, Newt. We’re running out of time. Sphenson planted some bombs in this place.”
Newt widened his ayes. For a moment, panic covered his face. “Okay, slim it, Tommy.” He pulled out a thing from his pocket, like a phone Clarisse gave him before, but bigger. “Hallo? Hallo? Newt’s here. Everybody, listen up! Danger. This place will bloody explode in several minutes. Get out of this buggin’ place immediately! I’ve found Tommy. Over.”
“Okay, Newt. I’m listening. Quickly get our ass out of here.” Sounded like Vince.
“Gally?” Newt asked through that thing.
“We’ve found Aris. On our way out, Newt.” Absolutely Gally’s voice.
Newt stuffed it into his pocked. He eyed Thomas. “How much bloody time do we have?”
Thomas shook, not sure. “Maybe fifteen.”
“Hope the buggin’ Cranks don’t make it more than two minutes.”
***
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Samina