2. 2. Phase Two

"Elizabeth," he spoke for the first time in a slight drawl, making literally everyone turn to me.

I felt my cheeks heat up dangerously as I tried to make out his features, "Do I know you?"

He inhaled sharply, as though about to answer from the top of his head, but remained silent before sighing and turning to the others, "Welcome, Group B. You are all here thanks to your incredible survival skills, and I am glad to see that you have suffered less losses than Group A—"

"How many of Group A are still alive?" I couldn't help but ask. Immediately, I shrank and felt my cheeks heat up as I muttered, "Never mind, keep going."

"For your information, Miss Tudor," he spoke, dragging out on my name, "there are twenty remaining subjects in Group A. Now be kind enough not to interrupt me again during my speech."

Once again, I wished for the ground to open and gulp me down like a sip of water. I hugged my knees and barely listened as he talked about the survival of humanity and some kind of virus or something. What did catch my attention was the fact that every single one of us had been "infected" and that we would have to walk a good few miles past some mountains to get a cure...

I looked around and saw various emotions across the girls' faces: shock, a sort of betrayal, distress, curiosity, some angry faces here and there, and even a tad bit of confusion. At that point, and after having been reminded that I'd been extracted from the only home I'd ever known and that I wasn't even allowed to talk about it, I didn't much care if I had cancer or AIDS; I just wanted to see my friends again.

Twenty remaining Gladers could mean literally anything. I didn't know how much time had passed since the last Greenie I remembered— was it that hunky guy who Winston said liked blood? It could've been one month as much as it could've been a whole year or more from my last memory to now. The twenty survivors could very well be completely foreign to me— All right, maybe not all of them. I was pretty sure some would have survived.

Alby, for instance. He was the leader, everyone's pillar in the Glade. If he... if ~he~ didn't make it out, then who the hell would have? Minho. Minho would have, more than anybody else. He was a shucking Runner, the Keeper even. And neither of them would ever leave Newt behind or let him down. They were the trinity, as Winston had referred to them, they went together no matter what. Speaking of Winston, I was pretty sure he and Gally would be able to fend for themselves— together or on their own. I didn't worry about Clint or Frypan, and I knew... hold up, what about Nick?

I made to speak up but I refrained myself at the last second. I'd have to ask that girl —Teresa— if she saw a toddler in the Glade. If she did, then it would mean that Alby had agreed to show Nick to the rest of the Glade— just then, I frowned remembering my dream of last night. Nick was revealed to the rest of the Glade. I knew it because Clint had told me —and he wasn't supposed to know about him— in broad daylight, not caring if anyone heard him. She must have seen Nick. I had to ask her—

My thoughts were interrupted by someone nudging me on my right. I turned to Borte who indicated the man with her eyebrows and my eyes followed. He hadn't shifted from his position and only then did I notice the full-to-the-bursting manila folder on the desk. He had a stern look on his ferrety face that reminded me of a teacher who was literally done with the distracted student. He raised his eyebrows intently at me and I felt my cheeks heat up so much I was sure I'd start tearing blood any second if he kept his gaze.

Thank God, though, he turned away and kept on talking about a special mission that we had and that Group A wasn't officially informed about. He kept on harping about the importance of the mission and the fact that it had to be done or we wouldn't receive the cure after having crossed the miles and mountains.

"The mission, ladies, is to help Subject A1 kill Subject A2, also known as Teresa and Thomas respectively. You are not to interfere with the mission, and you are to do anything to assist Teresa in..."

"What's your name?" I asked, making him frown and the children surrounding us laugh.

He blinked twice, "I'm Thomas."

I had dreamed about a Thomas. He had been my friend once. Of course, it could've been another Thomas, but my gut told me it was the very same one.

Before I could help myself, I piped up, "Why do we have to kill him?" This time, I didn't shy away when he tried to glare at me.

"First of all, Teresa must kill him. Second of all, she will tell you why he should be killed. And third of all, what part of 'not interrupting me again' do you not understand?" His voice was velvety but his tone was cold, and I should've probably shrunk between my inmates but I didn't.

And do you know that feeling of complete indecency? Like, things happening at the exact moment in which they shouldn't? Yeah, that. That was what happened at that moment with the malfunction on the filter for my mouth.

When I should've shut up, my mouth and brain decided to be witty by saying, "The part about murdering someone. That's what I don't understand."

Literally every head turned to me, including Teresa's, and then Ferret-Guy did the most unexpected thing: he smirked at me as though he were proud of what I'd done. "Well well, Miss Tudor. Not out of wit, are we?"

I swallowed hard when I realized he expected me to answer, "I won't do something wrong with no valid reason, sir. It's against my personal ethics."

"You may call me Mr. Janson," he then raised an eyebrow at me, surveying me from head to folded legs, "Hold on to your... personal ethics, Elizabeth. They might just prove to be your salvation."

I frowned, then. "Janson," I muttered. The name sounded vaguely familiar, and it kept nudging at the back of my mind like I should know who it was just by hearing it.

***

That night, the girls feasted on some of the seemingly endless pile of food, but I was in no mood to eat like a pig. I took a bag of cereals and some dried fruits, mixed them together, and then sat in front of the weaponry wall, which still wasn't unlocked.

Janson said that it, along with a portal whose name I'd forgotten, would only be free tomorrow morning at six. The portal would close after fifteen minutes, given our large number; but the weaponry would be unlocked ten minutes before the portal opened, and would not be locked again. In all, we would have twenty-five minutes to choose our weapons (for those leaving last), and fifteen minutes to leave.

Of course, leaving was optional. You could leave this facility at the given time, or you could die in horrible conditions. Seemed fair. I had yet to find out what the dangers were, aside from the deadly virus we were presumably infected with. I frowned at the thought: learning this should've panicked me at the very least, but I felt eerily detached from the situation.

I was thinking about that while munching on almonds and sitting cross-legged in front of the weaponry when I felt someone sitting next to me, "What are you up to?" I turned and saw someone I hadn't yet spoken to.

My eyebrows jumped, "Choosing my weapon. What about you?"

Teresa sighed, "Trying to cope with the fact I'm expected to kill a guy in two weeks at most."

I shrugged, "Is he that bad? Thomas?" I asked, trying to slyly make her talk about the Glade after I left.

Her lips parted and her piercing blue eyes focused on a spot on the linoleum floor as though she were trying to remember the guy, "I uh... he did something I can't forgive."

From her tone of voice, I could guess she didn't want to expand on the subject. I couldn't care less about that boy, to be honest, I only wanted to know about my friends but I had to be inconspicuous in doing so.

I noticed she wasn't carrying any food and so I tilted my bag of cereals-and-dried fruit towards her as an invitation to share, but she shook her head, "No, thank you."

I rolled my eyes ever so slightly, I hoped she didn't notice. "What was it like, in the boys' Maze, anyway?"

She gave me a sideways glance before extending her left hand towards my bag of cereals and taking a handful, then she started picking each flake with her right hand and eating them one by one. "I don't remember much, I was in coma for a week and we escaped a few days after that."

I shrugged hopelessly, "What were the few days like?" I insisted. I needed news about my friends.

She gave a frustrated sigh and looked back at the pack of girl-Gladers. Among them were the few faces whose names I knew: Tony, Harriet, Sonya, and Borte... the others, I hadn't met yet. Looking at them, interacting with one another and seeming so much like a family— no, they seemed more like a clan than anything else. And glancing at Teresa and me, sitting apart from them, I realized how much of outcasts we were. It was Group B, and then us. The only representatives of Group A. Of course, no one knew I had experienced the Glade and the Maze, and it had to stay that way.

Teresa shook me out of my reverie as she cleared her throat and popped another cereal flake into her mouth, "You spent the day with Tony, right? I'm sure she told you what it was like in the Glade. Well imagine the very same, except with boys instead of girls, and there you have it." She turned to me, her icy blue eyes strict, "Is that fine?"

I gulped. It was most certainly not fine. I wanted to know if my friends were alive, but she had derived the subject. I'd have to try her later, but for now a nod and a tight smile was enough to reassure her. We kept on eating silently, now facing Group B instead of the weaponry. I observed as Sonya peeled a banana and handed it to the little girl who had deemed me "weird" the other day— or had it been yesterday? I didn't know anymore.

Time seemed to extend and condense as I tried to make out when exactly was the last time I'd gone to the Deadheads for my research. It seemed so pointless now that we were out of the Glade and facing a new type of danger to which we'd have to adjust quickly. I still didn't understand why we would need the weapons. I turned to ask Teresa but when I did, I saw something most unexpected. Her eyes were full of tears, though she didn't look sad at all. She was frowning in the distance and I thought she might be frustrated.

"You miss them, don't you?" I asked, trying to be smooth about the whole thing. I didn't know yet if she was a crying pansy or if she tried playing "tough shank", so I needed to be evasive.

She shook her head, "Not so much, actually. I haven't known them long enough for that."

Tough shank, then, I thought.

"Oh," was all I said before grasping at the occasion to get information, "Why would we even need the weapons? I mean, Janson only talked about solar stuff. The most we'd need for that is a good brand of sunscreen."

She chuckled, trailing off before giving me a shocked glance, "Wait, you're serious? He talked about the virus. The Flare. We're all infected but it'll take two weeks to get into our system. The worst cases are dangerously crazy and beyond repair, the only way away from them is to kill them. They're not human anymore, if that makes sense."

I hadn't realized my jaw was slack until I had to swallow, which I did with some difficulty. "You mean to say that it's the actual zombie apocalypse out there?" I sighed and muttered, "What a time to be alive."

"It's a pity you had to wake up to this, really. Aren't you getting memories in your sleep? Thomas used to." Teresa murmured secretively.

I was about to answer when Harriet called lights out saying we'd need all the sleep we can get. I went back to my mattress at the back end of the dormitory and fell into a sleep like death.

***

It was nearly six in the morning and the girls were busy packing for the next fifteen days. Harriet, Sonya, and Borte were making sure there was no pushing and arguing concerning the distribution of the weapons and backpacks. Harriet had made Teresa and me go first to "get us out of the way", and so it was that we were loading food before everyone else.

When I checked, my backpack contained two empty flasks that seemed to keep approximately one liter each, a matchbox, a flashlight, hair ties, pads, a...

A cape? I wondered as I held it up, what is this, Hogwarts?

I shrugged it off and saw that the rest was enough empty space to store food for weeks. That backpack would not be a treat to carry but it had all the essentials for this trial. And, of course, I had my weapon. I had chosen a two-foot-long machete whose leather sheath I had attached to my belt. The hilt was made of black rubber and dented so as not to slip from sweaty hands, which I believed was a constant risk in a flared world such as the one we were about to be dumped into.

It was ten minutes later that the portal to the outside, which was also called a Trans-Flat as Borte reminded me when we were waiting for our turn to shower, opened. Harriet went first, calling everyone packed to follow her and telling Sonya to stay last to make sure every girl got out.

I was the third one to go through the gray, shimmering door. A mist of ice ran through my whole body as I walked through and, to my slight panic, was greeted by nothingness.