Chapter 19.
At one a.m. Thomas was doing great. Sure, he had to sit as still as possible as to not wake his friend up, but aside from that everything was great. The fire was burning, warming him to his core. And he felt happy that he'd made Newt feel better. He didn't have anything to do, but he felt content with just looking into the fire.
At two a.m. Thomas was starting to get bored. He gazed longingly at his backpack on the other side of the fire, wondering why in the world he hadn't taken it with him. Then he'd at least be able to read a book, as long as he turned the pages quietly and didn't hold it too close to the fire.
At three a.m. Thomas was not only bored but was starting to feel tired too. He tried his best to stay alert, but it was a hard task to perform, he almost dozed off several times. On top of that, the firewood was starting to run out. They'd collected a big pile of twigs and branches, but most of it had already been fed to the fire. He wished time would move faster.
At four a.m. Thomas had put the last piece of firewood into the flames, which were burning lower by the minute. He knew he'd have to get more, otherwise, the fire would die and he didn't want to sit in the cold. He didn't want to leave his friends unguarded, but it should be fine if he just picked up a few twigs from outside their camp and got back inside quickly. The only problem was that Newt was still leaning on him, and he didn't want to wake him up if he could avoid it. He tried his best to lower Newt carefully to the ground, but he woke up as soon as Thomas moved. He sat up and looked at Thomas tiredly.
"What happened?" He asked before a look of realization appeared on his face, "I fell asleep on you, didn't I?"
"Yes," Thomas confirmed.
"I'm so sorry," Newt said. Thomas was pretty sure his face had turned red, though it was hard to tell in the flickering firelight.
"Don't worry about it," Thomas said, "now, I need to go and collect more firewood so the fire doesn't die.
Newt glanced at the fire. "Okay, but don't go too far. And take a knife with you."
"I don't have a knife," Thomas said.
"You can have mine," Newt said. He opened his pack and dug around in it for a few seconds before taking out a pocketknife.
Thomas accepted the knife. He thought that it was kind of unfair that only some of them had gotten knives, but then again, they could have gotten no knives at all, so he supposed he should be grateful.
When he stepped out of their shelter the cold hit him. It made him shiver, despite having been seated next to a fire for hours.
The sun had started to rise. It was still pretty dark, especially with the trees blocking out most of the light, but he wasn't completely blind at least.
He looked at the ground but found nothing. He'd forgotten that they had already collected firewood before, meaning he wouldn't find anything nearby. He walked in a direction he was pretty sure they hadn't searched.
He didn't find much, even as he walked further and further away from the others. He'd put the knife in his pocket since he didn't think it would be a good idea to walk around in the darkness holding a knife.
After a few minutes he'd collected a handful of twigs, it wouldn't be enough to sustain the fire for more than half an hour, but he was considering heading back. The forest was so quiet it was eerie, he wanted to get back to his friends as soon as possible.
He decided to walk for two more minutes before heading back.
That's when he heard something from behind a cluster of trees. It sounded like voices, though he couldn't detect any words. His blood turned to ice. The shock made him drop what he was holding. He cringed at the soft thud that wasn't loud, but still a sound. He stood completely still, afraid to cause any further sounds that could alert whatever or whoever he heard to his presence. What if it was a crank? Or even worse, several cranks?
Thomas realized then that the voices had stopped. It was just as quiet as before.
Thomas was torn between going back and going forward. The rational part of his brain nagged at him to get back to his friends, wake them all up immediately, and run in the opposite direction of where the sound had come from.
The curious part of him urged him to go investigate. What if there were people there? His curiosity won, stupid as it was. He made his way toward the direction of the sound, trying his best to be quiet. He took a deep breath before going around the cluster of trees that was obscuring the source of the voices.
He regretted his decision immediately when he'd stepped past the trees.
The scene before him looked like it could've been a campsite once upon a time, but in the present, it was a few piles of torn canvas accompanied by broken camping supplies, something that resembled a half-destroyed campfire and various objects that were smashed past recognition. And that wasn't the worst part. In the middle of the destruction sat half a dozen men and women that were obviously cranks. They were all looking directly at Thomas.
He froze. He didn't know what to do. He considered running away, but what if they followed him? Where would he run anyway? If he ran back to his friends with a bunch of cranks coming after him it would put them in danger, since most of them were asleep and they only had a few pocket knives to defend themselves with. He couldn't run in the opposite direction from his friends either. Then he might not find his way back to them and when they searched for him later they might run into the cranks.
So running was out of the question. There was only one thing he could think of to do instead. He had to talk his way out of the situation, trick the cranks if necessary.
"Um, hello," Thomas said, trying to sound friendly.
"Hello, little boy," said one of the cranks in a slow voice, dragging out each syllable.
"What is the little boy doing out in the woods all alone?" Asked another crank, eying Thomas hungrily. Thomas would have to think fast before he became breakfast for a bunch of insane cannibals.
"I'm not alone," he said, trying to keep his voice steady, "I'm with my friends. Trust me, you don't want to meet them, they're really scary."
He looked around at the cranks to see if they were buying it. Of course they weren't.
"I don't see anyone else here," said a crank that might not have been completely past the gone. Her eyes gleamed with malicious intelligence.
"They're around here somewhere, I should go find them," Thomas said, backing away.
"No!" Said one crank.
"Wait here with us," said another, "we can play a game."
"Yes, let's play a game," Thomas said, trying to sound enthusiastic, "how about hide and seek? I hide and you seek."
The cranks murmured to each other, considering the idea.
"No," said the woman that wasn't past the gone, "he's tricking us. He's trying to get away!" Thomas guessed she was the leader, the others let out grunts of disappointment but didn't oppose her.
"Don't listen to her," Thomas said, "she's the one trying to trick you. She doesn't want you to have any fun, because…um…She wants to kill you all from boredom!" He cursed himself for not coming up with something more believable, but the other cranks seemingly bought the lie. They mumbled about things that supported the idea, while their leader was arguing and yelling at them for being idiots, which didn't really help her case.
They ganged up on her, some of them holding sharp objects, some baring their teeth at her.
Thomas didn't stay to find out what happened to her -nothing good, judging by the sounds of screaming- he turned on his heel and ran away while the cranks were distracted.
Thomas ran as fast as he could, knowing he didn't have much time before the cranks realised he'd fled.
He cursed the amount of slippery roots he had to avoid stepping on.
He remembered the way he'd come from, which was a small relief. After a few minutes he was back at their camp.
He rushed inside their shelter.
Newt stood up. "Tommy, what's going on?" He asked.
"Cranks," Thomas said. He went over to the others, they were still sleeping. Thomas started shaking them awake.
"Wake up! We have to go!" He told them, trying to be loud enough for them to hear while not being loud enough for the cranks to hear in case they were searching for him.
Newt came over to help him. Together they'd woken everyone up within two minutes at most.
Their friends, despite looking tired, caught on quickly. They were soon on their feet with their backpacks on, ready to go. Thomas ran over to the dying fire and stomped out the flames.
"Five cranks. That way," Thomas explained, pointing at the direction he'd come from.
"But that's north, if we go in the opposite direction we'd be going back to where we started," Harriet said.
"Let's go sideways then," Thomas said, "that way we'll go around them."
No one protested. They hurried out of the shelter. Minho, who was at the front of the group, turned left and started running that way, the others followed.
They ran for about an hour before deciding to take a pause. They talked about what they should do next. They needed food, but they hadn't seen a trace of a single animal, and they didn't have time to set up snares and wait for something to get stuck in it. They would have to search for plants instead. It turned out that both groups had taken a book on edible plants with them. They were starting to plan how many groups they'd split into and how far they'd go in search for food, but as it turned out, they had been followed.
Two cranks stepped out from behind a large boulder, both of them holding knives.
"The little boy isn't alone after all," said one of them.
"Yes, but his friends don't look very scary," noted the other one.
The two groups got up to run in the other direction, but two more cranks revealed themselves, cutting off their escape route. Two more cranks appeared, one on the left and one on the right. Thomas recognized all of the cranks except one. The sixth one must have been hiding or something.
"What do you want?" Minho asked threateningly, holding out his knife for them to see.
"It's not about what we want," said the new crank, then he pointed at Thomas, "that one wanted to play a game. But we don't like hide and seek, we like tag."
"You want to play tag?" Minho asked.
"Yes. We chase you and we catch you and we kill you."
"Look, there are more of us than there are of you," Harriet said, "plus we're armed. If you attack us we won't hesitate to kill you. Now let us go."
The crank made a gurgling sound that was probably supposed to be laughter.
"The little girl has a sharp tongue, but our knives are sharper," he said.
Then he lunged at her.
It wasn't a very smart move. Harriet (and the ones standing close to her) simply stepped aside. The crank fell to the ground. It tried to get up but Harriet kicked at it.
The other cranks took their friend's attack as a signal and attacked as well.
Thomas took out the knife from his pocket and got ready to defend himself.
The cranks were not particularly smart or well-balanced, but they also had nothing to lose, they only wanted to kill.
A crank holding a big shard of glass ran towards Thomas.
Thomas waited for the right moment and when the crank was about to run him through he ducked, grabbed the crank's legs and pulled them to the side. The crank fell to the ground, its head connecting with a rock. It lay still, dazed, but not unconscious. The knife felt heavy in Thomas' hand. He knew he should kill the crank, if he didn't it would get up and it wouldn't hesitate to kill Thomas and his friends. But he couldn't bring himself to do it. It reminded him too much of what he'd done to Newt in the simulation. He knew it was the best thing to do, the only thing to do, but it felt wrong.
His hesitation almost killed him. The crank had clawed its way up. It had lost its weapon but it still had fists. It punched Thomas. The force of the blow made Thomas stumble and fall. The crank grabbed hold of him, falling to the ground with him. Thomas' knife had fallen out of his hand. The crank growled, displaying its yellowed teeth. Thomas tried to push it away, but it was too strong. He used one hand to try to keep the crank from biting his face off, he used his other hand to try to find his knife. He felt around on the ground and didn't find it.
When he was sure he had lost, his hand felt something smooth and cold. It was the blade of the knife. He grabbed the handle and stabbed the blade into the cranks throat. He yanked it out and cringed as a spray of blood hit him. He pushed the now motionless crank off of himself and stood up shakily. He stared at the knife in his hand. There was so much blood. He had killed people before, but not like that.
He forced himself to stop thinking about it and took in the scene around him instead.
Half the other cranks were incapacitated, the ones who were still fighting were losing and would soon be defeated. There was only one crank who appeared to be having any luck. It was less clumsy than the others, and even more vicious. Thomas watched as it ducked to avoid an attack from Sonya, picked up a rock, and then slammed it into Sonya's temple. She fell to the ground and didn't get up. Her eyes were closed, so she was probably unconscious rather than dead, but Thomas could tell that the hit had caused great damage.
To his surprise, Newt ran over to the crank. He gave a roar of pure rage and slammed into it. The crank fell to the ground with Newt on top of it. Newt punched it repeatedly in the face until the crank was a very dead, very bloody mess. But he didn't stop, he looked very scary at that moment. Minho grabbed his friend by his arm and tried to pull him away, telling him to snap out of it, but Newt didn't care.
Thomas made his way over to them to help. He grabbed Newt's other arm, but his friend was much stronger than him.
"Newt, stop!" Thomas yelled.
To his surprise, it worked. Newt stopped punching the crank and allowed Thomas and Minho to pull him up. He still looked angry and absolutely terrifying. He stared at the crank for a while. He looked disgusted, though whether it was because of the crank or because of what he'd done to it, Thomas couldn't tell.
He turned around, to where Sonya lay, still unconscious, with Harriet and a few of the others from group B hovering over her.
Without saying anything Newt walked away from the group, sitting down on a boulder with his back turned on them. Thomas wanted to go after him, but he knew it would be best to let his friend have a few minutes to calm down before going to him.
The adrenaline was starting to leave Thomas, he felt tired, hungry and scared. Last night he'd felt like everything was great, but now they had been attacked by cranks, Sonya was hurt, and Newt was losing control of himself.
And the worst thing was that he knew that it was just the start, everything would get even worse soon, he was sure of it.
What he wasn't sure about was whether he'd survive it or not. He had already been close to getting killed by a crank because of his hesitation. He knew that he would have to toughen up if he wanted to live to see the end of the trial. The time for hesitation was over.