They were only allowed to sleep for four hours before Minho announced it was time to keep moving again. Apparently the plan had changed, Thomas had preferred the old one. But anything that got them out of the Scorch quick was good enough for him.

They walked under the sheets, the wind whipping at them, throwing dust and grit into their faces but bringing no relief from the terrible, impossible heat.

There was no doubt they'd reach the city tomorrow, there they would be able to collect fresh food and water, maybe spend a night under real shelter.

No one said anything much, focussing all their energy on carrying on, the screaming from the night before had disappeared, but Thomas couldn't remember when. Neither could anyone else.

Nightfall brought a slight relief, but not much. They walked until midnight before stopping for more sleep.

Lying down the winds were almost soothing, lulling him to sleep. Just as his mind got hazy from exhaustion, the stars seemed to fade away, and sleep brought him another dream.

He's sitting in a chair. Ten or eleven years old. Teresa―she looks so different, so much younger, yet it's still clearly her―sits across from him, a table between them. She's about his age. No one else is in the room, a dark place with only one light―a dull square of yellow in the ceiling directly overhead.

"Tom, you need to try harder. Rachel and Aris both got it days ago." she says. Her arms are folded, and even at this younger age, it's a look he doesn't find surprising. It's very familiar. As if he has already known her a long time.
"I am trying." Again it's him speaking, but not really him. It doesn't make sense.
"They'll probably kill us if we can't do this."
"I know." The younger Thomas imagines three bodies lying in blood on a cold floor, and somehow the older Thomas can see them.

"Then try!"
"I am!"
"Fine," she says. "You know what? I'm not speaking out loud to you anymore. Never ever again until you can do it."
"But―"

Not inside your mind, either. She's talking in his head. That trick that still freaks him out and he still can't reciprocate. Starting now.
"Teresa, just give me a few more days. I'll get it."
She doesn't respond.
"Okay, just one more day."

She only stares at him. Then, not even that. She looks down at the table, reaches out and starts scratching a spot in the wood with her fingernail.
"There's no way you're not gonna talk to me. I've got Rachel and Aris anyway."
No response. And he knows her, despite what he just said. Oh, he knows her.

"Fine," he says. He closes his eyes, does what the instructor told him to do. Imagines a sea of black nothingness, interrupted only by the image of Teresa's face. Then, with every last bit of willpower, he forms the words and throws them at her.

You smell like a bag of crap.
Teresa smiles, then replies in his mind.
So do you.

Thomas woke up to the wind whipping at him, the Gladers' sheets whisked away by the gale.

The dream had been another memory, learning the telepathy trick he shared with Teresa, Rachel and Aris. They had all figured it out before him, just like in the Maze.

The sky was black, signifying a storm that would be upon them very soon. A patchy memory that storms in hotter places were always more torrential, heavy rain for days and weeks. And in the Scorch, they could count on it to be ten times worse.

He wanted to wake Teresa, still asleep beside him, Aris and Rachel only a few feet away. Tell them about his dream.

But he needed sleep desperately, and he didn't fight the urge to slip away, this time into nothing.

The light woke him to a dull, gray dawn that finally revealed the thick layer of clouds covering the sky. It also made the endless expanse of desert around them look even more dreary. The city was so close now, only a few hours away.
The wind tore at Thomas, he could feel a thick layer of grimy filth covering his whole body.

Most of the other Gladers were up and about, taking in the unexpected shift in the weather, deep in conversations he couldn't hear.

A storm, in the desert, in a world with jacked up weather systems. We really should get moving. Teresa was right, the telepathy was a godsend, there was no way they would hear their real voices through the wind.

How did you sleep so long? Rachel came over, eating half a granola bar. She had left the packing and sheet to Aris.

I had another dream. Thomas started, all three of them stared at him.

What about? It was freaky to talk like this, when they were right next to each other. They must have looked like half-Gone cranks to anyone watching.

We were learning our telepathy. I couldn't figure it out so Teresa was threatening me with silent treatment. Thomas met her eyes, still piercingly bright in the dim light. You said some people would kill us if I didn't get it soon.

Minho was shouting at the top of his voice, that they were going to get to the city before the storm soaked them, replenish their supplies.

Rain doesn't sound bad, we could all use a shower. Aris was right, but being caught in a storm would end badly, knowing their luck.

The group set off, heads bowed against the winds. Every so often a sheet was blown away and someone would shout in annoyance.

They were only a couple of miles away from the closest buildings when they came across an old man lying in the sand on his back, wrapped in several blankets. Jack had been the one to spot him first, and soon Thomas and the others were packed in a circle around the guy, staring down at him.

Thomas's stomach turned as he studied the man more closely, but he couldn't look away. The stranger had to be a hundred years old, though it was hard to tell―the wear and tear of the sun might've made him just look that way. Wrinkled, leathery face. Scabs and sores where his hair should've been. Dark, dark skin.

He was alive, breathing deeply, but he gazed at the sky with an emptiness in his eyes. As if he was waiting for some god to come down and take him away, end his miserable life. He showed no sign he'd even noticed the Gladers approach.

"Hey! Old man!" Minho shouted, always the tactful one. "What're you doing out here?"
Thomas had a hard enough time hearing the words over the ripping wind; he couldn't imagine that the ancient guy could make anything out. But was he blind as well? Maybe.

Thomas nudged Minho out of the way and knelt down right beside the man's face. The melancholy there was heartbreaking. He held his hand out and waved it right above the old guy's eyes.
Nothing. No blink, no movement. It was only after Thomas pulled his hand back that the man's eyelids slowly drooped closed, then open again. Just once.

"Sir?" Thomas asked. "Mister?" The words sounded strange to him, conjured up from the murky memories of his past. He certainly hadn't used them since being sent to the Glade and the Maze. "Can you hear me? Can you talk?"
The man did that slow blink again, but didn't say anything.

Newt knelt next to Thomas and spoke loudly over the wind. "This guy's a bloody gold mine if we can get him to tell us stuff about the city. Looks harmless, probably knows what to expect when we go in there."
Thomas sighed. "Yeah, but he doesn't even seem to be able to hear us, much less have a long talk."

"Keep trying," Minho said from behind them. "You're officially our foreign ambassador, Thomas. Get the dude to open up and tell us about the good ol' days."

For some odd reason Thomas wanted to say something funny back, but he couldn't think of anything. If he'd been funny in his old life, every scrap of humor had certainly vanished in the memory swipe. "Okay," he said.

He scooted as close to the man's head as he could, then positioned himself so their eyes were square, just a couple of feet apart. "Sir? We really need your help!" He felt bad for shouting, worried the old man might take it the wrong way, but he had no choice. The wind was gusting stronger and stronger. "We need you to tell us if it's safe to go inside the city! We can carry you there if you need help yourself. Sir? Sir!"

The man's dark eyes had been looking past him, up at the sky, but now they shifted, slowly, until they focused on his. Awareness filled them like dark liquid poured slowly into a glass. His lips parted, but nothing came out except a small cough.

Thomas's hopes lifted. "My name is Thomas. These are my friends. We've been walking through the desert for a couple of days, and we need more water and food. What do you ..."
He trailed off when the man's eyes flicked back and forth, a sudden hint of panic there.
"It's okay, we won't hurt you," Thomas quickly said. "We're ... we're the good guys. But we'd really appreciate it if―"

The man's left hand shot out from beneath the blankets wrapped around him and clasped Thomas's wrist, gripping it with a strength far greater than seemed possible. Thomas cried out in surprise and instinctively tried to pull his arm free, but couldn't. He was shocked by the man's strength. He could barely budge against the man's iron manacle of a fist.

"Hey!" he shouted. "Let go of me!"
The man shook his head, those dark eyes full more of fear than any kind of belligerence. His lips parted again, and a rough, indecipherable whisper rose from his mouth. He didn't loosen his grip.

Thomas gave up the struggle to free his arm; instead, he relaxed and leaned forward to put his ear close to the stranger's mouth. "What'd you say!" he shouted.

The man spoke again, a dry rasp that was unsettling, spooky. Thomas caught the words storm and terror and bad people. None of them sounded very inspiring.

"One more time!" Thomas yelled, his head still cocked so his ear rested only inches above the man's face.

This time Thomas understood most of it, missing only a few words. "Storm coming ... full of terror ... brings out ... stay away ... bad people."

The man shot up into a sitting position, his eyes full and white around his irises. "Storm! Storm! Storm!" He didn't stop, repeating the word over and over; a mucus-thick strand of saliva finally crested over his bottom lip and swung back and forth like a hypnotist's pendulum.

He released Thomas's arm, and Thomas scooted back on his butt to get away. Even as he did so, the wind intensified, seemed to go from strong gusts to outright hurricane-strength gales of terror, just like the man had said. The world was lost in the sound of roaring, screaming air. Thomas felt as if his hair and clothes might rip off at any second. Almost all of the Gladers' sheets went flying, flapping over the ground and into the air like an army of ghosts. Food skittered in all directions.

Teresa and Aris pulled Thomas to his feet, the wind almost knocking all three of them over.

Harriet was shouting words that were carried away by the wind before they got anywhere close to Thomas, she pointed at the city, to the Gladers, set off at a run.

Everyone followed, Thomas and his friends bringing up the rear. Luckily they weren't going directly into the wind, which would have proved impossible.

The blowing dust made it almost impossible to see, even the huge buildings of the city became only vague silhouettes.

The wind had gained a rough edge, pelting him with sand and grit until it hurt. Every once in a while a larger object would fly by, scaring him half out of his wits. A branch. Something that looked like a small mouse. A piece of roofing tile. And countless scraps of paper. All swirling through the air like snowflakes.

Then came the lightning.

They'd halved the distance to the building―maybe more than that―when the bolts came from nowhere, and the world around him erupted in light and thunder.

They fell from the sky in jagged streaks, like bars of white light, slamming into the ground and throwing up massive amounts of scorched earth. The crushing sound was too much to bear, and Thomas's ears began to go numb, the horrific noise fading to a distant hum as he went deaf.

They kept running, people fell and got back up. Thomas hauled Teresa back to her feet, didn't let go of her hand. He couldn't hear anything, the dust made it hard to breathe.

The lightning kept coming, it wouldn't be long before someone was struck, burnt to a cinder like a forgotten match.
And where was the rain? Thomas wondered. Where was the rain? What kind of a storm was this?

A bolt of pure white zigzagged from the sky and exploded on the ground right in front of Thomas and Teresa, knocking them back. Wind buffeting their bodies as they struggled to stand again. Aris and Rachel were far ahead.

He heard a ringing now, a steady, high-pitched buzz that felt like nails in his eardrums. The wind tried to eat his clothes, dirt stung his skin, darkness swirled around him like living night, broken only by the flashes of lightning. Then he saw it, a horrific image made even spookier by the on-again-off-again source of light.

It was Jack. He lay on the ground, inside a small crater, writhing as he clutched his knee. There was nothing below that―shin, ankle, and foot obliterated by the burst of pure electricity from the sky. Blood that looked like black tar gushed from the hideous wound, making a paste of horror with the dirt. His clothes had been burned off, leaving him naked, injuries spreading across his whole body. He had no hair. And it looked like his eyeballs had..

Thomas spun around and collapsed to the ground, coughing as he spit up everything in his stomach. There was nothing they could do for Jack. No way. Nothing. But he was still alive. Though the thought shamed him, Thomas was glad he couldn't hear the screams. He didn't know if he could bear to even look at him again.

Teresa was pulling him away, her mouth open, shouting words he couldn't hear.

Come on, we can't help him. Thomas let her drag him.

They stumbled forward, following the others as they ran. People fell to the lightning, no one Thomas recognised, but he tried not to look too hard.

There was nothing to focus on but running, survival. Thomas hardly cared if he was permanently deaf, as long as he lived.

Another blast of white threw him and Teresa backwards again. Teresa, even with her holding his hand he had momentarily forgotten her. The bolt of lightning bringing his humanity back.

The bolt had struck where Minho had been running. Minho. Thomas looked for him as he struggled to get back up, helped Teresa, pushing her forward.

Flames danced on the edge of his vision. It was Minho, his clothes were on fire.

Thomas fell to his knees beside his friend, throwing handfuls of sand over him in an attempt to suffocate the flames. Teresa had come back, was helping him. Minho rolled on the sand, using his hands to beat at the flames on his chest. A few stragglers ran past, but they didn't stop. Thomas didn't blame them for it.

In seconds the fire was out. Thomas and Teresa pulled Minho up, dragging him by the shoulders.

"Come on!" Thomas screamed, unable to hear his own words. Minho wrapped one arm around Thomas's shoulder, the other around Teresa's. The three moved as fast as they could towards the building, mostly dragging Minho.

The lightning continued to strike the sand, leaving lumps of fulgurite behind. All the Gladers were heading for the buildings, but there seemed to be significantly fewer than that morning.

Aris reached the door of the first building before anyone else, using his elbow to knock away sharp shards of glass before entering, pulling Rachel after him.

That they were both alive and unhurt made Thomas feel a little better, he could see Newt, Harriet, Sonya, Frypan.

Miyoko and Newt appeared, taking Minho from Thomas and Teresa, dragging him into the gloom. Sonya waved a few Gladers in before entering. Teresa held Thomas's hand again, pulling him forward, towards shelter.

The rain began just as they entered. The terrible storm finally weeping for what it had done to them.

A/N: Please tell me what you thought of this chapter, I did copy some from the book as you can probably tell. Thank you to everyone who has shown interest in this story.