Disclaimer: Everyhting belongs to James Dashner. Except Florence.

EDIT: IMPORTANT: Before you start reading be aware that I've taken my own path to elongate the story and experiment with writing. This fanfiction will follow The Scorch Trials trailer for the second movie, so if you haven't watched it go do so. It will match up with the book later on in the fic, but for now it's following the trailer so hopefully it can make things more exciting and not just have a character follow the same plot line of the book.

Enjoy.

Finding out your boyfriend –well we hadn't really defined our relationship yet— was doomed to die no matter what due to a fatal virus that attacks the brain called the Flare is not always a good start to the week. Finding out you yourself is doomed to die no matter what due to a fatal virus that attacks the brain is an even worse start. Finding out the only reason you haven't gone psychotic is because of an expensive drug called 'the Bliss' which slows down the growth of the Flare and suppresses psychotic tendencies is the cherry on top of all this.

I was being held prisoner inside of a government official organization created to cure the Flare which, evidently, I had.

Being stuck in this claustrophobic, prison-type, room made me feel like a criminal. When a loud buzz emitted from the door, and I heard it unlock, my had perked up to it. I stretched my limbs as I leapt of the bed, groaning as I did so. It had only been two days since I last saw my friends. But it felt like it had been two years.

"Where's Janson?" I asked as I exited my room, passing by a worker in a lab coat.

"He's busy with the subjects, administering phase two. Should be back by tonight."

I nodded, continuing my journey.

"Oh, hey, Florence," I pivoted in the long hallway, turning to his voice. "Alistair's looking for you."

"Alright," I nodded, continuing my departure.

The glass door slid open for me and I entered the Hive. I didn't feel as superior as I did before I entered the maze. In fact, I felt like a small mouse. Everyone eyed me as I strolled around the center of the room and out another door. No sign of Alistair here.

No doubt he would be downstairs, probably in the crank ward, operating like he always was. I sauntered towards the elevator and pressed the correct button. It was silent the whole 5-second ride down, and when I reached my destination, I stepped out. This part of WICKED always gave me the chills. I never set foot past the elevator, and now I was stepping down here, observing the cranks that were held in cages like some sort of monster.

It occurred to me, seconds later, that these were once humans. These were people who had families and friends and pets, and homes. They were people who were spiraling towards their slow and gruesome death. People who were going to be experimented on until they had no life in them left. That thought was scarier than the open wounds and puss dripping from their face, as well as their daunting howls as they scratched the glass doors in an attempt to rip my brains out.

I was one of them. I had the same virus, eating me alive, just as they did. Only they weren't blessed with the same drug that I was to postpone the mentally disordered state of mine.

I sighed, my eyes glued to the floor as I strived to disregard their screams and slashes. I turned down a few hallways, having absolutely no idea where I was headed, until a voice called out to me.

"Florence," Someone hollered, "Down here!" I turned around, gulping as I passed another crank, looking to just have passed the point of Gone, and lured myself towards the voice. 'The Gone' was what we called cranks who had entered the stage of no return. They were basically walking corpses at that point. Eating their own flesh, or others, was a popular activity at that stage.

I entered an open doorway and observed Alistair in his natural habitat. He poked and prodded inside the brain of an appearingly dead crank, and swivilied in his chair to face me.

I gagged at the sight and turned away.

"Oh," He apologized, "Sorry. I'll get this cleaned up. I'm done anyways."

I plugged my nostrils from the rancid smell.

"Carter, Lloyd, wheel this one out. I'm done."

There was a scuffle of footsteps and then I hear the squeaky oil-deprived wheels of the gurney pass me. Alistair smacked his gloves off, tossing them in the bin beside me, and removed his mask. I turned towards him hesitantly as I dropped my hand from my nose.

"Just he person I wanted to see," He smirked smugly.

"I heard," I sighed, moving towards him.

He nodded, placing his hands on his hips. "Right, well, let's get started."

"Get started with what?" I cocked my head slightly.

"Just some tests. Janson's order. A few blood samples, skin swabs, and more." His smile faded as he stood up from his chair.

"Is that really necessary?" I grimaced, rubbing my forearm.

"Immensely, yes." He nodded. "Unfortunately you're cursed with this deadly virus, which I'm sure you read in your file; so just a few tests are required to see how far you've gone and how The Bliss is affecting you. None of the other cranks have had the Bliss injected in them. It's expensive to make and hard to retrieve the resources, therefore you're the only person we can test on."

I frowned.

"Which reminds me, you need another dose; once a week in the neck." He moved towards a table with all sorts of instruments and medical supplies on it.

"How'd I survive without it in the maze then?" I challenged

"Well we injected some when we fixed your leg. But back then you weren't in need of the drug that often. Only every few months, which we injected in you while you were sleeping. The process of the virus is speeding, so you need it in your system more often."

"That's unfortunate…" I sighed under my breath as I turned away from him. I had trouble feeling emotions now. I compartmentalized them so I wouldn't feel a thing. The night I came back to WICKED was one of the most dominant and vanquishing nights of my life. That I remember, anyway.

"I'll take you to another room." He smirked as he picked up a large needle and placed a hand on my back, "One that doesn't smell of a dead Crank."

I shot him an unrelenting stare as we exited the room. "You're speaking about them like they're not human beings."

"They're not," He countered with a small shrug, hand still warm on my back.

"They were."

"Not anymore. Do you know any human beings that eat other human beings?" He challenged while gimlet-eyed.

"That's called cannibalism." I replied sarcastically. "Humans, eating Humans."

"Whatever," he rolled his eyes, "They're all basically dead anyways. Just walking corpses."

I stopped as soon as we entered another door, and he pivoted to turn around to me in confusion. My face went crimson with fury. "Excuse me? I'm one of those 'walking corpses'" I finger quoted. "The only difference is you need me."

"Ugh," His eyes rolled skyward, "You know I don't mean that. You're not a freakin' zombie. Stop taking things to heart so easily. That's how you get chewed up in a world like this."

I wanted to retaliate, trust me, I did, but I decided to desert the ensuing fight and just take a seat on the operating gurney.

"Lean back," He ordered, slipping the gloves on.

I did as he said and pressed my head against the hard, lumpy pillow. The bed was angled up, but the way my body laid made me uncomfortable, like he was going to operate on me too. He pressed a cold, damp sheet of paper towel to my skin and starting wiping, sanitizing the area.

"This is going to sting, just a tad."

I winced, crinkling my eyes and turning away from him. I gasped sharply as I felt the spine of the needle enter the side of my neck, and relaxed once I felt the serum enter my body.

"Nice," he commented. "Whatd'ya say, same time next week?"

I rolled my eyes, again, at his insensitive question.

He moved back to his rolling table filled with medical instruments and fiddled around for a while.

"How is Newt going to survive without the Bliss?" I asked.

"Chances are; he hasn't caught it yet. He will in the Scorch, though; guaranteed. There are hundreds of those suckers crawling around."

I shivered, "But you said the other day that he wasn't immune."

"Yes," He lifted a finger, "But that doesn't mean he's a Crank yet."

My eyes narrowed into crinkled slits. He didn't care. He was immune. Almost everyone at WICKED was immune. They had the get out of jail free card, and we, the cranks, were stuck circling the board.

"Alright," Janson walked over, disrupting my train of thought. "This is just a little skin test. I'm going to do a few. There might be mild bleeding, but that's it."

"I had most of my leg ripped off; I think I can handle a little bleeding." I gleamed.

He snorted, "Right." He ambled towards me and sat in the chair. He took small shaving tool and chiseled small pieces of dead flesh into a cup.

Afterwards, he grabbed another needle and squirted a substance in the air. He smiled then gave me a disgustingly subtle wink as he injected another substance into me. It was in my forearm, this time. Just below my shaved skin. My eye twitched as I felt the serum enter me.

"I'll leave that there and see how it reacts; should only take a day. Tomorrow we'll do some more skin tests." He televised for me. "Now I'm just going to take a blood sample, then a simple brain test, and we'll be done."

"Woah, huh? Brain test?"

"Yeah," He nodded, acting as if I was stupid for not knowing. "Just a simple neurological experiment to see how you react in certain situations. It's simple, don't worry."

I frowned. "I'm not very keen on participating in that…"

"Well you're going to," He shut down as he fiddled with, yet, another needle. "Janson's orders. He'll have a freakin' fit if I don't do it. God knows what he'll do to you."

I bit my lip. Janson was the enemy, yet I had to work on the same team as him.

Hell, I was going to die anyways, might as well let them experiment for the sake of mankind. I ran a hand through my hair and leaned back in the chair.

When I heard Janson put the needle down, I jolted up, my eyes narrowing in on him in perplexity.

He rolled away from my question, and grabbed a tiny, cylindrical tube. Around the same size as my finger. While also grabbing that, he rolled over what loked like an IV bag hanging on a pole. It took me a few seconds to realize that the bag was empty. All the tubes that hung from it had small needles at the end. That bag was going to be filled with my blood in a few minutes.

"I thought you just needed a small blood test?" I cowered back in the chair.

"Uh uh uh!" He shook his head from side to side, "I never said small." He waved his hand in front of me, signaling for me to give him my hand. I obliged and gave my shaking hand to him, placing my palm in his. "This is just an iron test. It's a completed blood count which checks your hemoglobin and hematocrit levels."

"I have no idea what your say—OW!" I winced as he pressed the small cylinder from earlier on my index finger. It pricked the padded tip of my finger. He tried to hide his crooked smile as he dropped the cylindrical instrument on the table and grabbed a small cotton ball to clean the remaining blood that dripped out of the pinprick.

Unanticipatedly, he fused one of the large needles attached to the tubes that hung from the empty blood bag.

"Uh!" I recoiled, "Do you ever warn people before you do this? Is not warning people your thing?"

"Well," he shrugged off, "Most of the patients I do this on are strapped to the bed in a five point restraint."

That shut me up.

"While the blood's flowing I'll connect you for the neurological test." He announced, walking out of the room. The room was eerily silent for a while, afar from the pining screams coming from the hallways that contained Cranks.

He took a few minutes to return. When he did, I understood why. There was a big machine behind him, rolling on a small square pad. It was large, difficult for one person to carry. There was wires coming from it, and at the end of the wires were small pads that would connect to my skin on my head.

I gulped as he placed the machine beside me, sending me another cocky wink. Winking was his signature move. He had a point of doing it at inappropriate times, too.

He moved around me, placing the small pads at desired point on my face.

There were two on each temple, two on my neck, one on the nape of my neck, and one in the center of my forehead, a little higher than the one on my temples. I felt like I had just been abducted and I was being brainwashed by extraterrestrial aliens.

"Now the machine's going to administer a small shock. It's just a little jolt. It'll paralyze you for a few seconds and put you to sleep. When you wake up it'll be a hallucination. The machine records your delusions for further study later. It helps us learn how the virus grows. The moves you make, the choices you choose, might forcibly happen. You may not be able to control your body. Good luck."

"Wai—" Just as I was about to object, I felt the shock. My body went still, and my eyelids leisurely fluttered to a close. The last thing I saw was the memorable cynical smile of Alistair above me.

I felt like I was under the influence of drugs. Well, for all I knew, I was. My vision gyrated and swerved like a wave. My brain tried to form a scene in front of me. It loaded like pixels. Finally, it formed an environment. I was in the Glade.

It warmed my heart to be back to the closest place I'd ever called home. Only, something was different. There was no sky above me, only a dull gray cover. All the doors were open, but the grievers seemed to be silent. No livestock sounded in the distance, none of the crops were healthy and grown. Everything was dead.

I looked over to the Bloodhouse to see a pile of animals form in a heap of mud, all deceased. A swarm of flies buzzed around them, eating away at their decaying bodies.

Where was everyone?

"Hello?" I rotated my body to analyze the glade.

Smoke. I saw smoke. Smoke was coming from the Homestead, floating up in the air like a black demon. It dissipated as it got higher to the grey ceiling above us. It was coming from the small chimney Gally had installed. I walked over to it in a daze, spinning around every so often to look for life.

Once I got closer, I shifted to a jog. I fell clumsily against the door as I opened it, and I staggered into the room.

I gasped when I heard a sickly crunch under my feet, and fell back against the closed door. It was dark. Too dim. Unrealistically shadowy; it was still light outside.

I kept my back close to the wall, knowing eventually I'd bump into the small table in the living room that had a lantern and matched on it.

I let out an "Ow" when my bad leg collided with the desk. My hands felt around for the box of matches. One the box came into contact with my fingers; I pulled out a match and slid it across the side of the box. Still to dim to see anything, I lit the lantern on the table. I tossed the dead match aside, and lifted the lantern in front of me.

I shrieked when I saw a pale face in front of me. It was unrecognizable. A female. Her red hair fell in thin clusters, and her lips pulled back in a snarl as she let out a loud, inhuman bark. Phlegm bubbled from her mouth as she continued to growl and bark, like a dog. Black veins meandered across her face, and the state of her skin was repulsive. So dehydrated, so burnt. Her eyes were two large black abyss' and her teeth were rotten and filled with holes. She appeared to be around the same age as me, but it was hard to tell with her leathery skin. This was the farthest Crank I've seen yet.

"We're all gonna die…" She growled, "WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE?"

I whimpered as I recoiled from her, covering my mouth with my hand.

"Everyone of us… WE'RE ALL DEAD." She grabbed both of my forearms and started to violently shake me. "ALL DEAD ALL DEAD ALL DEAD," She chanted like some sick ritual. Her spit found home on my face. I tried to push her away, but it was difficult considering I was cornered. She whacked my arm, causing me to drop the lantern.

"No!" MY voice cracked when the lantern crashed against the floor. The homestead immediately took aflame as the girl let me go.

"WE'RE ALL DEAD," She screamed one last time before darting out the front door.

"No no no!" I screamed to myself as I tried to put out the fire with a blanket. It kept growing and growing, too fast to save.

"YOU DID THIS," I knew that voice. I spun around to see the face of all my friends. All of them, even the deceased. They all wore faces that showed their true anger towards me. Blood trickled from their noses, veins snaked over their skin. Their pupils grew bigger, and patches of raw flesh appeared out of nowhere.

Minho shook his head at me, while Thomas' gaze dropped to the floor, unable to look at me.

"What?" I could feel the tears form "I-I'm sorry… What?"

Newt stepped forward, blood pouring from every open hole like a waterfall. I could hardly hear him over the gurgling of blood. "YOU BLOODY DID THIS."

One by one, they started to drop like flies. Chuck was first, then Gally. Fry, Thomas, Teresa, Aris, Veer, Jeff, Clint, Alby. They all dropped, falling to the floor like a pile of dominos. None of them were phased by the death of the others. They all just stared at me with looks of anguish and disgust.

"No no no…" I tried to help them, but they all just died in my arms.

The eyes of the living followed me like robots.

Another dropped, and another, and another, until finally, it was only Newt. Of course Newt was last.

"I'm sorry…" I whispered barely audible, as I cocked my head for an answer.

His lips twitched. His frown transformed into a smile; an extremely gummy, disgustingly bloody, smile. He started to laugh. It was so unlike him that I wanted to look away, but I couldn't. It was like a horror movie.

His eyes snapped shut, and he fell backwards into the pile of dead bodies.

In a natural reaction, I leaned over to the side and heaved up copious amounts of vomits. MY eeys cried from the lack of oxygen as I continued to spew everywhere.

The fountain of bile turned red, and I grew worried.

Moments later, I felt the warm liquid fall from my nose. Later, my ears, and then, my mouth. MY heart started to beat like a runaway train and I searched for something to remove from the same fate of my friends.

"WE'RE ALL DEAD," The girl whispered in my ear, right before fatigue came over me and I went spiraling towards the floor.

I gasped jaggedly and sat up in the gurney. The machine beside me beeped frantically as I ripped off the wires that were attached to my head. I was still overwhelmed with what I had just seen. I couldn't even breathe. MY breathing was rapped, and I was having a mild panic attack.

Someone handed me an inhaler, and I took it gladly; pressing two puffs into my mouth. It ook me a moment for my breathing to relax, and when it did, I did too, leaning back in the bed. MY body was detailed with sweat, and I felt the dry blood underneath my nose.

"What the hell?!" I turned over to Alistair his was sitting in a recliner, his hands behind his head, a far distance away from me. "What did you do?! What did I just see?"

"It wasn't real." He replied quietly, a coy smirk plastered across his lips.

"No shit, Sherlock." I growled, "But it felt real." I moved my hand to my nose, "And my nose is bleeding."

"That's…normal." he groaned as he stood up.

"Is it?" I asked, swinging my legs over the bed.

He scratched his head, "Eh." He leaned over to grab the remaining wire that was tapped to my neck. "Whatever. What's done is done."

"Well it's never going to be done again." I yelled at him.

He sighed, rolling his eyes nonchalantly. Did that mean it was going to happen again? If so, I wasn't letting it happen. It was so realistic, that I still had the taste of vomit lingering in my mouth.

He unhooked the needle that gathered my blood from my arm and put some sort of cap on the bag He placed a sticker on it and started labeling it with a permanent marker.

"Am I free to go?"

If I wasn't looking at him, I wouldn't have noticed the slight nod he gave me.

"Great." I leapt of the bed, but was held back by another wire. One that was on my forearm. I hadn't notice he'd placed one there. It must've been while I was unconscious.

I stomped out of the room, showing my frustration, and paced angrily towards the elevator. I bit my lip as I entered the elevator, the doors closing in front of me. When I re-entered the Hive, I turned to Hannah, one of the beetle blade workers I had previously worked with before the maze "Hey, Hannah, do you have the time?" I asked, analyzing the glade. It was unusually quiet and idle.

"9:30." She replied, looking from her work pad to me.

"PM?!" I asked, raising my voice.

"Yeah," She nodded, giving me an odd look as she returned to her workpad.

I ran a hand through my hair. "Oh my God." I gripped my scalp so tightly, that a few strands of hair fell out. I paced back and forth as I tried to understand the loss of time. Whatever machine that was just erased twelve hours of my day. But it hadn't seemed like twelve hours. Alistair was still there when I woke up; he had only just taken the needle out of my arm.

I blew out a large raspberry as I rubbed the nape of my neck.

"You okay?" An unrecognizable employee asked me as he passed.

"Yeah…" I drifted off as my eyes fell to the floor. "I'm fine. I think."

They really were experimenting on me, and they would continue to. I was their subject. I was their prognosis study. And what could I do? Absolutely nothing. I had to let them experiment and test on me. I would let them do anything, as long as that meant I would return to my friends. I would make a deal with Alistair and Janson.

Just as I was about to turn, I heard a door open.

It was a door that rarely opened, only to let people from outside in. Sand and dust swirled in like mini tornadoes in the cold night air, and a few people stepped forward, out of the dim abyss.

The door chimed before sliding shut again, locking itself tight. The visitors removed the scarves around their neck, and the hats off their heads. As well as the bundles of clothes that protected them from the scolding flares of the sun.

One of the members moved towards us and removed a pair of shaded goggles. "Greetings Florence," He turned to the others in the room, "Hannah, Micheal." He nodded at them. I recognized the man. He wasn't a doctor, he was one of the few people that exited WICKED's headquarters. His name was Linden.

"I've just returned from a survivor search. I found these few in the Scorch. They'll be our new test subjects."

They were Cranks. Of course they were. How would they agree to come with him though? Had he gave some heroic speech talking about how their help would save man kind? They shouldn't have believed it.

"Hanna, do you mind taking the two gentlemen here to the left wing? Florence, it would be helpful of you if you could show Rhea to her room. She will be residing two doors from yours."

I nodded at Linden. "Sure, no problem. I was headed there anyways." I would talk to Alistair tomorrow.

Linden moved aside to let Rhea stepped into view. When I saw her, I went rigid. It was the girl from the hallucination I had. Her red hair was no longer thin. It was thick, and long, and wavy, perfectly shaping her heart-shaped face. Her teeth weren't rotten, they were pearly and white. Her eyes weren't bleak and soulless, they were a warm hazel.

She tossed her hair aside as she sent me a gentle smile.

She held out a hand to me, and I was almost revolted by her politeness in a situation like this. "Nice to meet you Florence"

I placed my hand sloppily inside hers to return the gesture. "Ditto."

A/N: Hey everyone! Long time no see. I hope you enjoy the first chapter of this story, it was kind of rushed. I got relaly sick again, but I'm better now. Hope you all continue to read this story, let me know your thoughts.

Also: a trailer was made by the amazing Knarl for Things We Lost In The Fire. Go check it out its on my profile. It's incredible. Thanks for all the amazing reviews to my last chapter.

Enjoy :)