Hello! I was in a very one-shoty mood today! This is set a couple hundred years after the Death Cure and Thomas and his friends are now just history! Enjoy!


A single girl waded through a sea of gravestones. Some above empty spaces, but all with names. She sighed sadly, running milky fingers over the worn edges of stone. Where had it all gone?

She remembered when it all went bad. She had to remember, because it had been her last birthday. She shuddered, trying not to think of that day. Wisps of smoky fog chilled her bare toes, making her sink them further into the mud.

As she walked she read the names etched into the old graves. Names she had heard in her history class. Great men who had started the rebirth of humanity. She sat on one such grave.

Thomas.

She caressed the place where a last name should have been. He was the leader, she remembered from her history test. He had gotten everyone through some kind of experimental maze. He had lost people along the way though.

She shook her head softly. She wondered if he could see her there, perched atop his headstone like a raven. He'd sounded dull and unimportant in class, but now she felt as though she was under the gaze of a wise old soldier. Smiling sadly, she crept to the next grave.

Minho.

Again, there was no last name. She furrowed her brow, trying to recall why. Finally, it clicked. Their memories. They'd been erased by the government or something like that. Run by a tyrannical woman. Their story sounded like a cheap novel. Not history. But they had to learn it every year. Same thing. Maze. Scorch. Death.

Paradise.

Same old lessons every year. Especially when it was near Remembrance Day. The national holiday in honor of the Gladers who'd died. But at least they got a day off school, so it was alright.

The girl clasped her hands together. She wondered what her part would be. If she would be taught about in future schools. But then, there might not be anyone to teach left by then.

Her last birthday, at 11:16 pm, exactly. She remembered every detail. The sky had been smoky red. The grass had felt smooth and ticklish against her calves. She had been wearing her new, sparkly blue dress and baby blue sandals. And she had been laughing. Before it all went bad.

But, she couldn't think of that now.

She shook her head furiously and leapt onto an older grave. This one had apparently been set up first. But the girl knew it was empty. She traced each letter with a finger, loving the sound of the name.

Newt.

It was going to be the name of her little brother, in honor of the famous Glader who'd died. But her brother had been born dead thanks to the badness. Thanks to the radioactivity.

Everyone had been protesting it for weeks. It was impossible. It was dangerous. It needed more testing. But there hadn't been time for testing. After years of oppressive heat and residue from the Solar Ages, where solar flares had burned the earth.

The sun had finally dried up and died. But not before they did it. Not before they sent up a replacement. A new energy source. A new sun that was supposed to be safe and last millions of years.

But it wasn't safe, because at 11:16 it destabilized, shooting out radiation and killing millions. Babies were born stunted and deformed. Or dead.

And now the girl cried because there it was. Above her. Glowing sickly green and pumping out more toxin per second. They had said it would stabilize soon. There was nothing they could do to stop it. They just had to wait.

Well she'd been waiting almost a year now. Everyday, more people died. The girl shook with sobs. Another thing she'd learned in class was that the average lifespan used to be 70 to 100.

Now it was 20 to 25.

At least, she reasoned, the radiation sickness was not contagious. Although everyone most likely had it by now. And it wasn't like the pandemic of Glader times. What had they called it?

The flare.

There were vaccines and scientific terms for it now. And it was extremely rare, almost extinct. But when they'd had little medicines for it, it had been deadly. She wondered how it must have been to be a crank, like Newt. Or to know a crank, like Minho and Thomas.

She wondered if they were all staring at her, hating her for destroying everything they'd helped set up. Hating humans for wasting their efforts to save the world. The girl wiped the last of her tears.

People weren't supposed to be outside more then half an hour at a time. She had already exceeded that. Her mom would be worrying soon. But she lingered among the headstones.

Thomas.

Minho.

Newt.

People from hundreds of years ago. People whose stories were public knowledge. The founding fathers. Everyone knew them. And the girl hoped that someday people would know about her too.

But for now, she was just a child known only by her teachers and friends and parents. The girl twirled a ribbon of thin, balding hair in her hand. It wouldn't be long before she lost even the few strands that she had.

Just like her mother had. Just like everyone.

She sighed. The new sun was a real shank. She smiled slightly as she practiced her vocabulary words in her mind. Shank. Shuck. Klunk. Slim it. Slinthead.

Old dialects were hard to understand, but fun to say, at least. Still smiling sadly, she picked herself up and started walking out of the Memorial Park.


Well? Please let me know what you think in a review! I really hope you liked it or that it at least made you think! Check out my other two stories, Bittersweet and Moments!

Wolf Out...