Chapter 17.
Thomas woke up after a few hours of peaceful slumber. He was lying on his back with one of his arms squeezed under him. He was pretty sure he hadn't fallen asleep like that, and it wasn't very comfortable. Most of his arm had gone numb, but he could feel a dull ache in his wrist like there was something hard digging into it.
He was puzzled for a moment until he realized that he was still wearing his watch.
He extracted his arm, which went from numbness to the tingle of pins and needles. He waited for it to go away. When the sensation had faded he took the watch off. He held it up in front of his face so he could see what time it was. He wasn't particularly surprised when he found out that it was only a few minutes after five in the morning.
He groaned internally.
He put the watch on top of the small stack of books next to his bunk. He'd made a habit of not taking it off -he never knew when he'd be forced to run for his life without any time to gather up his things- but he doubted anything would happen, and if something did happen it'd be easy to snatch it up without wasting any time.
Thomas looked around the room to see how his friends were doing. At least the majority of the group was asleep if the snoring was anything to go by.
From the other side of the room, he saw Minho, sleeping with his hand hanging over the side of the bed. He was snoring loudly. Newt was in the bunk below, unlike Minho, he wasn't snoring. Those assumed he was sleeping, though he couldn't tell since his friend had his back turned.
Thomas tried to go back to sleep, after all, he didn't know how much he'd get to sleep in the next few days. The only problem was that he didn't feel tired in the slightest. He pulled his blanket over himself and forced his eyes shut, but sleep didn't come.
He gave up quickly since he realized it wasn't going to work. He reached over the side of his bunk bed, picked up his watch, grabbed the book that had been under it, and put the watch back down on the now smaller pile of books.
He figured making himself useful was better than just lying on his bed doing nothing, but when he opened the book he found that he was completely and utterly unable to concentrate.
It wasn't because of the dimness of the room, nor was it due to the earlier mentioned snoring (though those factors certainly didn't make things easier). He'd briefly forgotten about what awaited them in just a few hours, but when he opened the book he was brought back to reality and found himself suddenly overwhelmed by a flood of thoughts, memories, worst-case scenarios, and the feeling of dread.
They could all be dead within twenty-four hours. What if they got attacked by an army of cranks? What if they got lost and died from dehydration or starvation? What if WICKED had decided that they didn't need the gladers anymore and planned to send them into some kind of death trap?
He tried to stop those thoughts, tried even harder to put his attention on the book, but when his gaze swept over the words he couldn't make sense of them, he wasn't even sure what the book was about.
He closed it in frustration, but he didn't put it away. He didn't really feel like moving, so he just held the book up before himself. He stared at the front page, which displayed a title he didn't read and a faded picture of a rope tied in a complicated way. He guessed the book was about how to tie knots or make snares or something along those lines. It seemed kind of fitting since he felt like a noose was tightening around his throat. He felt like he couldn't breathe. He wanted to get up, wake the others and then get the stupid trial over with. Unfortunately, he couldn't. He was pretty sure the door was still locked, and the people at WICKED had probably made exact plans for everything, including the time they left, they wouldn't just let them leave when they felt like it. Thomas didn't think his friends would be too happy about being woken up at five in the morning for no reason.
He spent the next hour or so lying on his side, staring at the wall and wondering what would happen to them. He wondered what the outside world was like for the millionth time. Were there still cities out there, or had the last safe places been overrun with cranks like Denver? Who would they meet out there? It could just be cranks, but he found himself hoping they'd encounter someone not infected, or maybe an immune like them. He'd like to hear about what was actually going on in the world from someone who wasn't working for WICKED, though he guessed WICKED would have complete control over who they met. Still, he couldn't stop himself from hoping. He also couldn't stop himself from wondering if there even were any people left out there. What if there were only the people in the building they were in, their friends at the other facility, a few scattered immunes, and the rest were all cranks? He wondered again if the cure would be enough to save the human race at this point. Sure, it would probably save the few people who weren't infected or in the early stages of the flare, assuming there were any of those left. It would hopefully work on people past the gone, but he found it more likely that it wouldn't be able to repair the severe brain damage they suffered.
He tried not to think about that possibility.
He imagined what it would be like to create the cure, only to find out that it was too late to cure Newt. That thought made his heart break. And he knew he wasn't the only one who had a friend who was infected. There was a girl in group B, the one who'd talked to Thomas earlier, she'd told him her friend was infected, she was probably having the same thoughts as Thomas.
And they weren't the only ones. There were billions of people who'd had their loved ones taken away by the flare over the last decade. Most of those people were gone now, only a few remained. He hadn't given those people much thought before, but he realized that they had it way worse than him. Sure, he may have been put through a set of hellish trials where he'd seen his friends die around him, but the people out in the world had to live in the scorched and chaotic wilderness that was their planet, where surviving each day was a trial, they had not only seen their friends die, they'd had to watch them go crazy first, sometimes even having to kill them themselves like Thomas had done with Newt.
They lived with the knowledge that they would either die from the flare or get killed by cranks. They didn't have the hope of finding a cure that Thomas had.
He was starting to wonder if WICKED really was as bad as he'd thought it was. They may have done bad things, but they were at least trying to create a cure.
He didn't like those thoughts, it was easier just hating WICKED. But the more thought he put into it, the more he felt like he was the bad guy. He and his friends hadn't wanted to help WICKED, they'd tried to escape. Sure, it was reasonable to want to do that, after all, they'd been hurt, lied to, and treated like test subjects, their response to that was only logical, but if enduring that would save all of humanity, wasn't it worth it?
In the end, it came down to who he chose to save. His friends or everyone else in the world. Of course, he didn't want to risk losing more of his friends, but if they didn't stop the flare he doubted they would last for long anyway. Newt would die for sure, and the others may be immunes, but that didn't save them from the harsh conditions of the new and dangerous world. Getting the cure was the only option, and he couldn't believe he'd thought otherwise.
Come to think of it, it was actually pretty hard to believe. He wondered if the people at WICKED had been playing with his mind again, what if they had implanted the thoughts of escaping?
He stopped himself in his thinking. There was no point in trying to figure out what was real and what wasn't. The only thing that mattered was finding the cure and doing what he could to protect his friends while doing it. After that, he'd make sure they got as far away from WICKED as possible.
His trail of thought was interrupted when someone from behind nudged him. He nearly jumped out of his skin. He turned around to glare at the person who'd startled him.
It turned out to be Newt. At first, he looked surprised at the glare, but it turned quickly to amusement.
"Did I interrupt your beauty sleep?" He asked teasingly.
"No," Thomas said indignantly, sitting up, "I've been awake since five."
"Did you have trouble sleeping?" Newt asked in a more serious voice.
"Nah, I just woke up early," Thomas explained, "what about you? Did you sleep well?"
"Not really," Newt said, then he added, "by the way, the door just unlocked, we'll leave for the cafeteria when everyone is ready."
Then he walked off.
Thomas put on his new clothes over what he was currently wearing. He might regret it if they were thrown into another desert, but he would have to deal with that later.
He checked his watch before putting it on. It was around half past six, an hour and a half from when he woke up.
He looked at the stack of books next to his bed, he considered leaving them there so he wouldn't have to carry them around, but there was a possibility they wouldn't get to return to their room.
When everyone was ready they left for the cafeteria. There was a solemnness hanging over the group like a dark cloud. No one spoke, they were all too wrapped up in their own thoughts.
Thomas wished they would walk faster. The anticipation was killing him.
Just outside the cafeteria, they met group B.
"Good morning, we were waiting for you," said Teresa. Thomas noticed that she was holding a backpack. In fact, as he looked at the other members of the group he saw that they all had backpacks.
"Are those the supplies for the trial?" He asked. Not greeting Teresa back was probably considered rude, but he was curious.
"Yeah, these backpacks are the supplies," she said.
"Wait. You mean you only got those backpacks? That's it?" Minho asked.
"A few of the backpacks had pocketknives in them, but otherwise that's it," Harriet said, "but there's no food, no water."
That was not what Thomas had wanted to hear. It would make things way harder. No food was bad enough, but no water? And even if they managed to find water, they had no way to take any with them, because they didn't have anything to put it in.
"What's stopping you from just taking food from the cafeteria?" Minho asked.
"They are," Teresa said, stepping to the side and pointing at two security guards. Thomas hadn't noticed them before, mostly because Teresa had been standing in front of them. The guards scowled at Teresa, apparently, they didn't like being pointed at.
"They won't let us back inside," she said, glaring back at the guards. They didn't say anything, but their scowls deepened.
As Thomas looked at the guards, he spotted a pile of backpacks, the same as the one's group B had.
"Are those for us?" He asked, gesturing at the backpacks.
Teresa nodded.
Thomas went to grab one, but one of the guards pushed him back.
"You'll get your backpacks after you've eaten," he said.
"Or we could just take them now," Minho suggested.
"We're not stupid," the other guard said, "if we let you take them with you you'll just use them to smuggle out food."
"Of course you're not stupid," Minho said, though his tone of voice said something different.
The guards did not appreciate the comment, seeing as they started to reach for their guns.
"Come on, let's go," Newt said, steering Minho away from the guards he'd just insulted. The rest of the group followed them into the cafeteria.
Thomas fell into step beside Newt, who was chiding Minho on how he was going to end up getting shot if he didn't 'stop insulting people every bloody time the possibility arose'.
They may not have been able to take the backpacks with them, but that wasn't the only way to smuggle out food.
The day's breakfast consisted of flavorless granola bars, which Thomas found very convenient. Not because he liked flavorless granola bars, but because they were small enough to fit in his pockets. He grabbed a bunch of the things and followed his friends to a table. He looked around cautiously, but no one seemed to be paying them any attention. He stuffed his pockets with as many granola bars as he could without it being too visible. The other gladers did the same thing. After that, he ate the remaining granola bars and drank as much water as he could.
The group finished quickly, then went back to where group B was waiting. The two guards didn't stop them from taking their backpacks this time, and apparently, they were stupid, because they didn't even ask them to turn out their pockets to see if they'd smuggled any food out.
Thomas opened his backpack to see if there was anything inside of it. Of course, there wasn't. He put the books in it. He would put the granola bars in there later since now wasn't exactly the time.
He closed the backpack and put it on his back. He looked at the others. They looked kind of like a bunch of normal teenagers about to go camping if you ignored the scared looks on most of their faces.
They stood there for a long time, waiting for someone to come and give them instructions. They had tried asking the guards questions, but they claimed not to know the answers, and they looked more and more aggravated each time someone spoke to them.
The few conversations struck up between the teenagers were short-lived. Small talk wasn't easy when you were thinking of all the horrible ways you could die in the next few days.
There was finally a sound coming from behind a corner of the corridor. Footsteps against the linoleum floor.
Soon Rat man was standing in front of them.
"Good, I see you are prepared," he said, "and I suppose you want me to tell you more about the trial now."
"Just bloody get on with it," Newt said impatiently.
"Very well. As I told you, you will walk to our other facility, where some of your friends are waiting for you. It lies north from here, about a hundred miles. It won't be hard to find once you get close. If you didn't know, we are in a place called Alaska, it's in the north, where the weather has started to return to what it was before the solar flares, so it can get relatively cold out there. You will be walking through a forest terrain. I hope you've spent enough time with the books we provided you with to know basic survival skills."
He paused for a moment to let the information sink in, then he spoke again.
"Now that you know what to do, I believe you are ready to begin your fifth trial."
He led the way through some corridors until they came to a small door. When he opened it a sudden chill came into the room. It got colder once they were actually outside though.
They were standing in a small area with high fences that would occasionally spark with electricity.
Rat man punched in the code on a rusty door. It swung open with an awful creaking sound like it hadn't been opened in years.
They began to exit through the door. Thomas found himself standing in front of a vast forest. It was like nothing he'd seen before. It was much bigger than the small forest in the glade, with massive pine trees spreading their branches over the forest like a green roof.
"Wait," Minho said, he had just stepped past the door, being the last one out, "which way is north?"
"I'm afraid you'll have to figure that out for yourselves," Rat man said. He gave them one last smug look before shutting the door.
This was it. They were on their own now, for better or worse, yet there was something calming about the forest, possibly because Thomas had been expecting some kind of scorched desert.
Then he imagined how easy it would be for a crank to hide in there, sneak up on them when they least expect it.
But for better or worse (probably worse), the fifth trial had begun.