17
THE STORM
⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤⋆
Rosa couldn't do it, there was no way that she could pull the trigger or even hand him the gun. Newt knew that it was one of her flaws, she cared too much about others. He didn't think of it as a flaw, it's what made her perfect. So he grabbed the gun from her grasp cautiously and approached his pleading friend.
"Wait- Newt-" she gasped, only stopping when Minho put his hand on her shoulder and pulled her back lightly, his eyes staring into her teary ones. Newt placed the gun on Winston's chest and covered his hand with it.
"Thank you," he smiled, his mouth still covered in his own blood, "Now, get outta here."
Newt struggled to say it, but he did, "Good-bye, Winston."
One by one they crouched down beside him and muttered farewells, Rosa went before Minho and quickly pressed her lips to Winston's cheek, "Thank you," she smiled, "I promise that we will get out of here and find somewhere better, for all of us. We won't forget you, Chuck and everyone else that we have lost on the way. Thank you so much, Winston."
She stood up and walked away, pulling her bag on her back and walking to catch up with the others. Newt turned to her just in time to see her wipe her tears away and not let a sob rip through her chapped lips. He wanted to comfort her, but she kept walking away from him and towards the mountains.
She was joined by the other Gladers, all of them walking in silence across the sand until a single gunshot echoed through the air. They all stopped, hearts breaking and tears falling before they continued on their journey.
⋆
The group huddled around a fire, the flames growing in size when Aris added more dead wood to the pile. They had set up camp at the wreckage of a ship, the metal structure lying on its side and untouched for a while. They had made sure that there were no Cranks around and had thought that it was best to sleep outside, just in case.
"I thought we were supposed to be immune," Minho pondered, his eyes never once leaving the burning embers of the flames. Rosa kept her head on Thomas' lap as he played with her hair, she tried her hardest to sleep but thoughts of Winston wouldn't leave her mind. And that only made her think of Chuck and Alby.
"Not all of us, I guess," Teresa added, lying on her back as she too watched the flames dance around in the pit.
There was a small silence before Newt joined in, "If Winston can get infected, we should assume so can the rest of us."
Rosa turned to lay on her back due to the bruises on her shoulder blade aching, she was thankful that they had faded into a lighter purple and red instead of it's old black and blue. Her eyes drifted from the embers and too Thomas' deep, hazel eyes. He hadn't noticed her movement and she took advantage of it; his tanned skin illuminated from the fire, his messy, brown locks that hung over his eyes slightly and even his lips that seemed to pout whenever he was deep in thought.
An honest smile appeared on her face as he looked down at her and smirked, she only turned to face Frypan as he talked. It was now his turn to admire her face as she concentrated on his words. "I never thought I'd say it, I miss the Glade," a tear slipped down his cheek, not even bothering to wipe it.
She sat up, groaning as she did, and put her hand on his knee. "I do too sometimes, I think about the community, the Gladers, Chuck, George, Alby, Jeff," she smiled, her eyes glancing around all of the Glader's faces to see their expressions, "But out here we have freedom, sort of. In the Maze, they lied to us, stole our memories, we were nothing but pawns in their game. We have a chance out here and I am not wasting it, I think that they'd want us to find somewhere and settle down. Make a new Glade if we want, on our own terms. It's what we deserve."
⋆
They had been walking for hours on end. The soles of her feet had been worked down and pained her every step, Rosa hated how similar it was to the Maze. How she needed to venture on to find an escape from it all, they had rewarded themselves with another break for the night.
All of them lying on the floor, under the lights of the stars, and were quick to fall asleep due to having no energy left. They had run out of water hours ago, and food. The only sense of warmth at night was found by huddling together, Rosa lying in the arms of Thomas. It was times like this that she missed the heat of the Sun, but in the morning she found herself missing the freezing air of the night.
Her dreams were plagued with images of Chuck, Alby and Winston, not once did she feel calm or bliss, all she ever felt was pain and guilt. Her eyes suddenly fluttered open when Thomas wriggled behind her, shaking her awake before shouting at the others to do the same with his raspy, hoarse voice.
Her eyes focused on a series of light at the base of the mountain, it wasn't too far now and all she wanted to do was run towards it.
"Newt, get up. Come on, let's go. Frypan, Aris. I see something," Rosa jumped up, balancing as Thomas pulled the others from their sleep, "You see that? It's light" he asked, his finger stretched out to the lights in hopes that it wasn't a hallucination.
"We made it-" Newt was about to finish his sentence, but a loud crash alarmed them. They all turned, their eyes now adjusting to the thunder clouds above them, lightning hitting the earth.
Rosa coughed, "We have to go! Come on!" She hauled the bags onto her back and was right next to Thomas' side as they started to run towards the building, the thunder behind them only getting closer.
With the speed of their feet, they had managed to run across the plains in no time. The lightning rattled them to keep moving, if not Rosa was sure that she would have collapsed at any minute. "Come on!" Thomas screamed, pulling Rosa closer to him as she slowed due to pain filling her body.
She could make out various Gladers shouting and yelling at them to keep going, almost drowned out by the echoes of the storm brewing and swirling above them. "Keep moving, come on!"
As usual, it was Minho, Rosa and Thomas at the front due to their running practice, despite her injuries she had somehow managed to find some source of adrenaline to pump through her veins and had now numbed the pain to focus on her speed.
As they continued to near the buildings, now passing broken down vehicles, the lightning seemed to land around them and failed to hit them. That was until a stray bolt struck one of the cars beside the three runners, Minho instantly getting thrown forward with a scream of pain. Thomas simply doubled over and rolled along the sand whilst Rosa seemed to get launched into another vehicle.
If it hadn't had been for the bandages and blankets that filled her bag, the damage could have been fatal to her spine. She crawled forward with the help of Aris whilst Newt and Thomas went to collect Minho, Aris called for Frypan to help him but Rosa couldn't make it out, his words causing ringing in her ears.
She wanted to turn around, to check on one of her closest friends and the boy she loved, but Frypan pulled her forwards and towards the doors of the building that towered over them. The door easily creaked open and they all entered, the door clicking shut behind them.
Frypan helped Rosa stand as Aris was quick to help Newt and Thomas with Minho's smoking body. The ringing was now slowly quietening in her ears, words now forming in her mind as the others talked. She fell to her knees beside his body as they all tried to shake him away, "Minho!"
They all yelled his name, soon stopping to see if he would respond. And he did, with a pained groan as his head rolled. The Gladers sighed with relief. "Are you okay?" Thomas asked, his eyes switching between Minho and Rosa.
She nodded and looked down to Minho, "What happened?"
She laughed along with the others, "I think you got struck by lightning, bud," she coughed, "You are smoking hot, literally."
He grinned, "You really think so?" he asked before his eyes landed on his shirt that literally seemed to emit smoke, "Holy shuck."
Rosa and the guys concentrated on pulling Minho up to his feet, somehow not managing to take notice of the wretched smell that filled their noses, almost like rotting flesh and dead corpses. Teresa screamed and jumped back, her torch illuminating the body of a Crank that lurched forwards at her.
More Cranks seemed to rush at them, tugging on chains that connected them to the concrete. Thomas' torch's light filled the room, revealing several dozen Cranks that almost guarded a door on the far wall. "Shucking hell!" Rosa yelled, backing up into an unknown Glader that she was soon to identify as Frypan due to his shouts.
"I see you've met out guard dogs," a voice appeared behind them, all of the Gladers turning to face the woman that stood in a door frame, she walked towards them and ignored the creatures as they lunged at her, only to be pulled back by their chains, "You guys look like shit. Come on. Follow me. Unless you want to stay here with them?"
Rosa was the last to follow after the girl, she soon followed the others after they sent her a look of disapproval.
⋆
"Come on, keep up. Jorge wants to meet you," she informed as the lady directed them through an industrial building. Rosa mentally made notes of where any exits were, just in case.
"Who's Jorge?" Rosa asked, jogging up the metal stairs to keep up with her fast pace, she refused to turn to them.
"You'll see," she replied, "No one's come out of the Scorch in a long time. You've just got him curious. And me, too."
All around them, people started to look up, some of them even following behind them and laughing as they walked through the building and towards the leader, Jorge. The building had a sense of community to it, despite its bleak appearance. She briefly wondered what the Glade would have looked like to outsiders.
The old factory had faced damage, evidently from the smashed windows and broken pipes that leaked water across the floor, yet soft light illuminated from strings of fairy lights and faint chatter echoed throughout. This was a home.
"Anyone else starting to get a bad feeling about this place?" Newt asked from behind Rosa.
Thomas turned, "Let's just hear him out, see what he has to say."
But Rosa didn't trust them, they had heard what Janson had to say and he even made his compound seem like a nice place that Rosa wanted to stay in. But it only turned out to be the complete opposite, and Rosa feared that the same thing would happen here. Her mind wracked up dramatic outcomes, some of which included WICKED finding them or Jorge and his people selling them out to WICKED.
All she could do was hope that it was not the case.
⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤⋆
This chapter and the previous one may seem like there are a lot of time changes, and that's because there is. This part of the film is mainly about showing their journey and I have tried to make it as interesting as possible