I do not own any part of The Maze Runner Trilogy, that belongs to the fantastic James Dashner.
All she could think about was the heat. It was so freakin' hot. It was so excruciatingly painful on her skin; that it started to burn. She struggled to look up at the radiant form of the blazing sun above her head and she decided in that moment, that she had never hated something so much. The humidity made it hard for her to inhale, as well as the dusty air.
Her body ached, like she had been in a coma for a year, and her stomach growled with hunger, like she had been starved the same amount of time. She groaned, clutching herself as she stumbled a few feet into the sand.
Where was she?
She had no idea.
She couldn't remember a thing.
Her mind ached as she tried to think of memories; friends, family maybe, but every time she tried she came up short.
Her mind was completely blank. It was vacant and bare, just like the land around her.
There was a whirring noise from above, and she glanced up.
A hundred feet above her was a large aerial vehicle, hovering in the air as it rose a few inches. The calamity of its large form caused it to blow the sand around her, making her to shield her face in order to protect her eyes.
She stared at it for a moment, and although it was an inanimate airborne medium, it seemed to stare back. Whoever was in that vehicle was watching her with close intensity. She held her arm up to shield the sun, and she made a face at it as she panted heavily. There was a shifting in the noise, and then it started to turn around, doing a full 360 rotation.
It made a loud whooshing noise as it flew off.
She had no time to analyze the vehicle anymore, but before flying off, after it turned around, she saw six letters.
WICKED.
She watched as it flew off in the distance, at an unbelievably hasty speed.
Finally, it kicked in that she was being abandoned here, in the middle of a barren desert. Panic mode set in and she felt the verge of a panic attack approaching
"WAIT!" Her dry throat croaked as she tried to run after the aircraft, her arms windmilling. "NO WAIT!" She hissed as her bare feet hit the staggered across the scorching sand. She hopped in the air, trying to avoid it as much as possible, and continue to scream at the aircraft as it retreating further and further away from her.
She shrieked for help until the aircraft was only the size of an ant, and that's when she finally gave up.
Defeat washed over her, and she collapsed onto the miniature dune of sand. Something was wrong, something was terribly wrong, but she didn't know what.
"Ah!" she yelped when the intense heat of the sand scolded her arms. She sat up into a kneeling position; her hands attempting to remove the curtain of hair in front of her face.
She finally turned around to analyze the desolate land, and when she turned around, during a full gyrate, she went stiff.
Encompassing her was only a burnt and cobbled landscape. There were traces of life here; hundreds of years ago maybe… All that was left was sand, dust, red rock, and dead husks of architecture that once thrived long ago.
Those dead husks weren't for another few miles; at least a day's walk away.
She couldn't decipher which she was scared of more: The heat, the loneliness, or the forgotten trace of her memory. She couldn't remember a damn thing. Not even her name.
Her name.
Something struck a chord in her, and like a spark igniting, something came to her mind. A name.
Tatum.
That must be her name, right? If not hers, then who's?
She shrugged to herself, concluding that that name must have belonged to her, and she stood up. She looked down at herself, observing her features. She had a fair skin tone, and a thin body, one that looked like it had barely eaten in the past few days. As if on cue, her stomach growled once again, and she moaned at the wiring pain in her abdomen.
She rotated her hands in front of her, like she was analyzing that they were really hers, and she rolled over to glance down at her legs. Her feet were red and the formation of blisters made a hasty start. Her hair was a light red, a shade that could almost be classified as strawberry blonde, and her face felt dry and dehydrated. She wasn't tall, but wasn't short either. IF she had to pick, she would be on the shorter side though. She wished she could see the rest of her features. What color were her eyes? Did she have freckles? Scars?
She fashioned a rather causal outfit. A long sleeve burgundy shirt, which she wished she could remove due to the heat, but she knew it would protect her from the intensity of the sun, and khakis that appeared to be a bit too large for her, hence the requirement of a brown belt to hold them up.
Why did she have no shoes on?
She frowned and pulled the pant legs over her feet to try to protect them from the scorching sand, but the balm of her foot was still exposed, as well as part of the heel.
She stood up, wincing as she felt the small inch of skin touch the sand, and moved forward.
She wanted to be strong, as well as brave; she did, but she just couldn't.
Only a minute after walking forward at leisure pace, she collapsed to the ground. This time in tears. What the hell was going on? Why would someone be so cruel and make her endure in this torturous environment, with no shoes or memory?
She couldn't help but cry. The tears felt nice as they pooled over her eyelids and streamed down her cheeks. Despite the warm temperature of them, they were cool compared to her hot face. They climbed down her cheeks, clinging for life at the bottom of her jaw line, until they fell to the sand below.
Sobs broke threw her chest, and she clutched it, curling into a fetal position.
She didn't even have protection. Some sunscreen would be nice, or some damn freaking shoes.
She remained like that for what seemed like hours, but in realism was only half of one. She concluded that she had to keep advancing forward, or else she would get nowhere, but that didn't stop her from letting a few sobs escape every now and again as she trudged forward.
From the angle of the sun, she deduced that it was around three or four.
The intensity of the sun was almost unbearable. It made her weary and tired, omitting any effort to run, although she probably should have in order to make it to the abandoned rubble miles ahead of her.
After walking for nearly two hours, blisters started to form. She had nothing to shield her face from, which caused it to dry out and crack from lack of moisture. The bottom of her feet bubbled, which was more disgusting to look at than anything. Her clothes were saturated in a fair amount of sweat, and her hair fell in thin clusters in front of her face.
Water.
She just wanted water.
What was it called, when character in movies thought they saw water in the middle of a desert, but it ended up being a hallucination?
A mirage.
She would give anything to even imagine a mirage, maybe then she would feel less thirsty. Maybe then she would have a motivator to move forward.
She wished she had her memory, and not for the sake of remembering memories, but for remembering what food tasted like. She could go for a fat, juicy burger right now, but all she had eaten in the last three hours was a mouthful of sand that had flown in her mouth as she tried to inhale.
The wind started to pick up, and it was nice to have some sort of cool refreshment, but in no way was it classified as a relief.
She heaved as she pulled the light weight of her body. Her tongue felt like a rock in her mouth, heavy and dry. She huffed as her body stumbled over one of the familiar red rocks.
It was too unbearable. The pain, the hunger, the dehydration, the blisters, the heat. It was all too much. She should have kept moving, but instead, for the third time that day, she collapsed to the floor.
Her body hit with a light 'plop' as she landed on the sand, and she made no effort to move herself, despite the twinging pain she felt. She couldn't even remember if her life was spent well. She couldn't remember if there was anyone that missed her, and she didn't remember if she had completed a bucket-list worthy catalog of pleasing tasks in her life.
And here she was, heaving for breaths, her face pressed to the sand as her body literally was being burned alive by the sun, which acted as a giant oven in this inhospitable arid region, about to die.
The fatigue from the heat stroke got the best of her, and her eyelids fluttered to a close.
"Hello?"
"Can you hear me?"
"Is she dead?"
At first, she couldn't hear them shouting over the wind. She couldn't hear anything, besides the howling air around her.
But seconds later, after she deduced that she hadn't imagined the whole scenario, she lifted her head up. Her eyes stung from lack of moisture, and she couldn't see anything but blurry shadows and red. So, in a natural reaction of course, she screamed.
"Hey! Girly! Calm the shuck down!" That was a male's voice, deep and slightly panicked as they tried to calm her down.
The moment her eyes dilated to focus on the shadows, she felt hands on her, which only made her more afraid. At least she could see them now.
She gulped a mouthful of air— and gritty dust— and her scream faded.
There were boys, all teenagers, scattered around the land beside her. They all had blankets over their heads, protecting them from the sun, and they were all clad in the same sweat drenched fashion that she was. They looked burnt, but slightly less charred then she felt. There was at least fifteen of them, three of them, clearly the leaders, were grabbing her as she writhed in the sand.
"Where am I?" She panted, "Who are you?" Tears welled in her eyes in fear. Her head darted frantically around, analyzing everyone and to check if there was a change in scenery.
An older boy of Asian descent kneeled forward, removing one hand from her arm. "Name's Minho," He pointed to himself. "This shank here's Thomas, that's Newt."
She observed the other two boys.
Thomas was tall, but not lanky. He had dark brown hair that matched his doe-y eyes, and small lips. She looked to the other boy, with a funny name, and saw a blonde boy, seventeen maybe, with blonde hair that cascaded in waves. He was also tall. He shot her a concerned look with his dark brown eyes. His chiseled jaw line was to die for, but the bags under his eyes were an alarming purple.
He was pretty cute, she had to admit. They were all pretty cute, but she had no time to expand on that thought.
She propped herself up on her elbows and scrutinized them.
"Who are you?" Newt interrupted her pore over. She observed the British brogue in his accented voice, and was taken aback by it at first.
"I…. U-Uh." She stuttered, "Tatum. My name's Tatum, I think."
Minho cocked a brow. "You think?"
"Yeah…" She licked her lips, "I mean, I don't know." She eyed them as she pondered whether or not to trust the boys. What if they were the ones who erased her memory and ditched her here? She took a second to decide against not telling them. "I can't remember anything."
As if Tatum had just revealed the big plot twist of a story, they froze. They exchanged glances, had some kind of internal conversation with their eyes, and then turned back to her.
"W-What?" She stuttered, pulling herself to a sitting position. "Why do you have this look on your face? T-This look like you know exactly what I'm talking about?" She expanded.
Minho shook his head, and stood up from his kneeling position as he ignored her. The other two did the same, and Minho held two hands out to help her stand up. She hesitated, but grabbed his cracked palms, hoisting herself erect.
An eruption of whispers broke out amongst the other boys who watched the confrontation like a zoo attraction. The wind had eased up a bit, making people's voices more audible. She glanced around at them. There were older boys and younger ones, tall and short.
Their piercing gazes made her feel uncomfortable and vulnerable.
"What're you doing out here?" Minho asked her, his arms folding over his chest.
She rubbed her sweat-drenched forehead with the back of her hand. "I don't know." She repeated in a deeper tone. "What are you doing out here?" she countered.
He scowled at her for a second, but Thomas' voice broke the connection. "Do you know anything about that city over there?" he pointed past her, causing her to spin around toward the abandoned pile of rubble that was her previous destination.
"What?" She breathed, "No. I was walking there, but it's too hot, I ended up falling asleep—" She glanced back down to the small indent her body made in the sand, "I guess…"
"So you can't remember anything?" Newt asked her, folding his arms in a similar manner to Minho.
She shook her head, "Just my name."
"Are you alright?" A boy hollered from the scattered crowd. They looked like the outfield of a baseball team. She didn't know how to reply, so she didn't. It was overwhelming being bombarded like this. "She looks like klunk!" He hollered to the boys when she didn't reply.
She didn't know what that word meant, but she knew it wasn't something pleasant.
"Get her some water," Someone shouted.
"What if she's part of WICKED?" ANother boy theorized out loud. Tatum thought back to the aircraft with the same name on it, and her face dropped.
Thomas leaned over to Minho, and although he tried to hush his whisper, she could still hear him. "Maybe she is apart of WICKED, or the experiment."
She froze. "Experiment? What experiment?" When they didn't answer, she started to get annoyed, "What is this place?" She gestured to the vacant region. Louder, she shouted, "Where am I?"
Minho presented her with a sly smirk as he straightened his posture.
"Welcome to the Scorch, Tatum."
A/N: Alright... So here we go again. Another Maze Runner fanfiction... Only this time it starts in The Scorch Trials, which I thought would be interesting and different from the rest. Give me your thoughts on the first chapter, maybe I'll continue.