I do not own The Maze Runner Trilogy.
"And they're turning us into monsters
Turning us into fire
Turning us into monsters
It's all desire, it's all desire, it's all desire."
—Kids with Guns by Gorillaz
No one said anything as the deafening sound of screeching metal echoed throughout the otherwise empty landscape. Ruby covered her ears and noticed that everyone else was doing the same. Everyone was watching as parts of the sandy ground flipped downwards, each patch eventually replaced with a large black square and one of those bulbous white coffins sat on top of them. Ruby didn't count them all, but she knew there were at least thirty.
No one spoke as the ground finally stopped moving. The only sound left was the wind whipping around them violently, flinging sand into their eyes.
Ruby absently felt someone grab her hand. Probably Joan, she dismissed. It took her a second to realize that the hand that was gripping hers was far too large and rough to be Joan's. Looking over, she saw that it was Minho who had grabbed her hand. Not that she minded, really.
"Hey," Thomas said, and it was then that Ruby noticed that Teresa had made her way over to them.
"So what do we do?" Asked Minho, who was eyeing Teresa bitterly. Ruby didn't blame him, either.
"If those things have bloody Grievers in 'em," Newt spoke, "we best start gettin' ready to fight the shuck buggers."
"What're you guys talking about?" Harriet asked. She had come over with Sonya, Brenda, and a Hispanic man Ruby didn't recognize.
"Oh great," Minho complained under his breath. "The two glorious queens of Group B."
Ruby shoved him, but he ignored her.
"I'm assuming you all saw those pods back in your WICKED chamber, too," continued Harriet. "They had to be where the Grievers charged up or whatever it was they did."
"Yeah," Newt agreed. "Gotta be that."
Lightening flashed brightly above them, and thunder crashed in the nearby distance.
"We've only got twenty-five minutes," Thomas informed them, looking down at his watch. "We're either gonna be fighting Grievers, or we need to get inside those big coffins at the right time. Maybe they're the—"
He was cut off by a loud hiss that seemed to come from every direction. The noise was piercing, and Ruby found herself covering her ears once more. She jerked her head to the white pods, where she could see a line of blue light that expanded as the coffin-like pods began to open. If they made any noise, it was swallowed up by the roaring winds and crashing thunder.
The group of teens shuffled closer together, trying to get away from the pods as they all swung open. They watched anxiously, but nothing happened.
"Ru!" Minho called, squeezing her hand. When she looked at him, he leaned down to her ear so she could here him better. "Stay here, okay?" Not waiting for a reply, he turned to the others. "Thomas! You, me and Newt! Let's go check it out!" He called.
Before they could move, something came out of one of the pods, and Ruby noticed that there was... something in every pod, slowly coming out of their homes. She scanned a pod that was close to her, studying the thing coming out of it.
Its arm came out first, a gross, misshapen, poor excuse of a limb. It was a sickly beige color, and none of its four stumpy fingers were the same length. The arm was horribly wrinkled and lumpy, and it had an odd lightbulb-looking thing stuck in its elbow, perfectly round and glowing an artificial orange. Its leg came out next. The appendage was just as ugly and misshapen as the arm, with four stumpy toes that took after its fingers. The knee had the same orange lightbulb.
"What is that thing?" Minho asked, tugging Ruby closer to him.
No one had an answer.
The creature finally managed to pull itself out. It was a grotesque, humanoid thing, tall, naked, and horribly deformed. Ruby felt bile rise in her throat as she looked at it. There were the same lightbulb things all over it, around two dozen of them in all. As it landed, one of the bulbs on its knee burst in a spray of reddish sparks. It didn't have any eyes, ears, nose, or a mouth.
Ruby looked around, and similar creatures had all come out of the pods. They all stood clumsily, surrounding the group. Then, suddenly, they all raised a deformed arm to the sky, and thin blades popped out of their stumpy fingers. The creatures all let out a moan, a deep, haunting sound that seemed to resonate in Ruby's core.
Dropping her hand, Minho turned to the shell-shocked group. "There's about one for each of us!" He called. "Grab whatever you got for a weapon!"
Reaching into her pack, Ruby pulled out two machetes. Holding one in her mouth, she reached back in and pulled out a third. "Here," she said, offering it to Minho.
He nodded sharply. "Thanks."
They looked back at the things, which were slowly making their way toward them. It was slow at first, but they were steadily gaining speed.
Ruby looked down at Joan, who was holding a long knife she had retrieved from her own pack. The young girl was staring down one of WICKED's creatures as if she was saying that she had claimed that one. Ruby did the same, eyeing the one right in front of her.
The things were about eight yards away now. They needed to start moving soon, or else things were going to get ugly.
Minho seemed to have a similar idea. "Now!" He shouted. "Charge them!"
Without hesitation, Ruby ran forward to the thing. It had stopped by that point, standing in a defensive position. Slowly, it raised its hand, pointing its bladed fingers at her. She ran up to it, ducking to avoid its arm, and swung one of her machetes at its other arm. The blade went an inch or so into its skin before it clanked on something metallic. Quickly, she yanked her machete out of it, leaping to the side to avoid the blades as they swung toward her.
She raised her other arm, swung down, and made contact with the bulb on its right knee. The monster seemed to slow down, like she had mortally wounded, and Ruby finally understood. If she went after the bulbs, then she would kill it. Looking over, Ruby was relieved to see that Joan had gotten the same idea; she kept a good distance between her and the monster she was fighting, occasionally darting in and destroying another bulb.
Pop, pop, pop.
She stabbed as many bulbs as she could, and jumped back to catch her breath for a moment. When she started to move back, she staggered when she heard a crack and saw a blinding flash in her peripheral vision.
Lightning. The storm was there.
As more and more lightning came crashing down, Ruby heard a sickening slicing noise and felt white-hot pain in her left arm. She tried to scream, but the noise kept getting caught in her throat. Stepping back, Ruby used her good arm to stab one more bulb, and the creature finally fell over, presumably dead. She looked down at her arm and nearly threw up. The thing sliced her good, just below the shoulder and—was that bone?
She shook her head, not really sure she wanted to know the answer to that question. Ignoring everyone around her, Ruby dug into her bag and pulled out an extra shirt. Gritting her teeth, she held back a scream of pain as she struggled to tie the shirt around her arm.
"Ruby, what the shuck?" Minho was jogging over to her, looking at her arm with wide eyes. Blood was slowly seeping through her make-shift bandage, and she grimaced.
"Hey," she breathed out, nodding her head slightly. "You good?"
He gently grabbed her injured arm. "I should be asking you that, you shank!"
Ruby shook her head. "We don't have time to worry about that!" When Minho started to protest, she pointed behind him at the pods. "Look!" Thomas and Teresa were climbing into a pod, trying to escape the storm.
Joan ran up to them. "We've got to hurry," she panted.
Newt and Frypan weren't that far behind her. "I think we could fit into one of 'em," Newt said, looking their small group over. "But we need to bloody hurry."
Together, they all ran to the nearest pod and clambered in. They shut the top, leaving them in complete darkness. Minho lifted his arm next to Ruby, turning on the light on his digital watch.
"We've got six minutes," he muttered. "Ruby, how's your arm?"
"What happened?" Joan asked on Ruby's other side.
"I'm—" she winced as a wave of pain crashed over her, "—I'm fine. I bet they can fix it when the times up." She winced again, grinding her teeth together.
In the distance, they could here lightning striking all around them, some bolts sounding dangerously close to their pod. They sat in silence, listening to the storm.
"How much time now?" Joan asked quietly, breaking the silence.
"Two minutes," Minho muttered, his anxious face illuminated by the dim light of his watch.
Newt looked up. "Do you think this thing'll hold up for much longer?"
"I dunno," Frypan replied, "but as long as we can hold up, we'll be alright."
A different noise came from outside, and everyone looked up. It was gradual at first, but then it got louder, and louder, and louder, until it was all Ruby could hear. Their pod vibrated from whatever it was.
"Should we see what that is?" Newt asked.
"Yeah," Ruby replied. "We must've missed something. I'll check." As she began to stand up, Minho grabbed her arm.
"Whoa there," he said. "What if a shuckin' bolt of lightning comes down and fries your shank butt?"
Ruby looked down, considering his words for a moment. "I'll cross that bridge when I get to it," she muttered. She placed her good arm firmly on the roof of the pod. Another thump told her someone else was helping her. Frypan.
"On three," she said. "One, two, three!" They both shoved on the roof, and it popped open. They hoisted their torsos over the edge, looking for the source of the noise. It didn't take long to find it.
"Guys!" Frypan called out, glancing down at their friends still in the pod. "You need to see this!"
It was a Berg. It was beginning to land on the ground, its bay doors opening as it went.
"C'mon!" Ruby yelled. "We've gotta hurry!" Using her good arm, she grabbed Joan, pulling her up. Minho and Newt followed suit.
They all climbed out, running to the Berg, where the shadowy figures of soldiers with guns stood. The rain-soaked ground was not good to run on; Ruby slipped many times and would have fallen had Minho not grabbed her arm, pulling her along. As they ran, a dozen or so of the bulb-monsters, their blades stained with a mixture of dirt.
"Go right through 'em!" Thomas shouted as he ran next to Minho.
The creatures screamed in response.
Minho and Ruby ran, and when she reached the line of monsters, she pulled out a machete with her good hand, stabbing bulbs like her life depended on it. And, she realized absently, it did.
The monster she was fighting went down surprisingly easily, and Ruby realized that it barely had any bulbs left to begin with. Looking around, she saw that all the other monsters were dead, too. Ruby chuckled softly in disbelief.
"It's leaving!" Thomas screamed, gathering everyone's attention. "Hurry!"
Minho grabbed Ruby's arm again, jerking her in the direction of the Berg, which was slowly taking off. They arrived when it was about six feet off the ground. Minho shoved her in, then Joan, and then he and Aris pulled each other in, collapsing on the floor of the Berg in a tired heap. Ruby fell down next to them, allowing herself to finally rest. Her breathing was labored, and she looked down at her left arm, only to feel her heart drop to her stomach. The entire shirt was stained a deep red with her blood, and now that her adrenaline was beginning to wear off, the unbearable pain was slowly coming back.
"Who are these two people?"
A man with short red hair was the one who asked the question. He held a pistol at Brenda and the older Hispanic man Ruby didn't recognize.
"Somebody answer me!" He demanded.
"They helped us get through the city," Thomas said quickly. "We wouldn't be here if it weren't for them.
The man jerked his head at Thomas. "You… picked them up along the way?
Thomas nodded uneasily, and Ruby knew this wasn't going to end well. "We made a deal with them," he replied. "Promised they'd get the cure, too. We still have fewer people than we started with."
The man shook his head. "Doesn't matter. We didn't say you could bring citizens!"
As the Berg rose higher and higher, the doors still didn't shut. Ruby squeezed Minho's hand, but then had to wonder when she grabbed it in the first place.
"Well, you told us to come here," Thomas shouted, getting to his feet. "And we did what we had to do!"
The man paused, agitated, before he sighed. "Sometimes I forget how little you people understand what's going on. Fine, you can keep one of 'em. The other goes."
Thomas swallowed. "What do you mean … the other goes?" He asked shakily.
Cocking his gun, he aimed it at Brenda's head. "We don't have time for this!" He yelled angrily. "You have five seconds to choose the one who stays. Don't choose and they both die. One."
"Wait!" Thomas cried.
Ruby looked at Brenda and the other man. Their faces were pale and scared.
"Two. Three."
Ruby closed her eyes, partly because she didn't want to watch, and partly because she was so tired...
"Four!" The man shouted. "Choose right now or they both die!"
Ruby opened her eyes to see Thomas raise a shaking hand to Brenda.
"Kill her."
The man shoved his gun into his waistband and grabbed Brenda by the back of the shirt, dragging her toward the open Berg doors, toward what would be the end for anyone who fell out.
A/N
Holy crap, we're almost done with The Scorch Trials! Then, it's on to The Death Cure. I'm excited just thinking about it!
If you have any ideas or constructive criticism, please don't be afraid to let me know! I'm open to nearly anything!
Speaking of ideas, I've been thinking of making a separate story when Wild World is over. It'll just be little oneshots of parts of The Fever Code, and random parts from Paradise between Ruby and everyone (but mostly Minho obviously). What do you think? I'm probably gonna do it regardless, but I'm still curious as to whether you guys would read it or not.
And, as always, if you enjoyed this, please don't forget to follow, favorite, and/or review!
Love,
Nell