'Jake died. Winston is injured. And Newt… Newt was almost… ' Thomas didn't dare complete his thoughts. His mind filled with the images of what had just happened- almost happened to Newt.

They all were running for their lives as hundreds of crank were gushing towards them. He didn't know where they came from or how it happened. All he knew was one moment he was running, and then suddenly a crashing sound came from behind him. And what he saw when he turned around was enough to make his heart jump out of his body. Newt was struggling on the ground with a crank on top of him.

"Newt!" Thomas screamed.

Newt kept the crank's face away from as much as he could, preventing himself from being bitten.

"Newt!" Minho yelled and sprinted back towards him.

The crank opened his mouth wide and Newt could see the blood that had turned black with glass shards stuck inside his throat. The veins popping with black all over the crank's face. The image made his stomach hurl in disgust.

Just then, Thomas kicked the crank with all his force and threw him off of him into the depth beside them. Minho and Thomas quickly picked Newt up.

"Newt!" "Newt, you good?" They both asked that the same time.

"Yeah." Newt clung to Thomas side, pulling him to run, as he froze at the sight of cranks still about to reach them. "Thanks Tommy." Newt slipped up the nickname.

Well, in his defense, he didn't have the time to realize that he was supposed to be mad at Thomas and in this time of death, he really didn't care.

After that, they all kind of blacked out for a while, not realizing where they are going or what's in their surrounding. The only thing in their mind was, 'Keep running, keep running' until-

"Guys! Quickly, here." Teresa yelled, pulling them inside a dome shaped like structure, which hid them from the cranks.

They all hurdled in together under the small canopy, hiding from the cranks. They held their breath, waiting for the sounds of cranks to disappear.

After a while, Thomas craned his neck up to check whether the cranks had left or not. As he slowly got up, Newt clutched his T-shirt, stopping him from moving. Thomas looked at his worried expression that warned him not to move.

Thomas put a hand above Newt's and in reassurance, but still looked up. Seeing that nothing alive or half alive could be seen or heard, he let out a heavy sigh and plopped back down beside Newt. It was like a heavy weight had been just taken off all of them as they all finally let out the breaths they had been holding.

Thomas looked at his friends and could see the tiredness from everything that had been happened to them. "You guys get some sleep. I'll keep watch."

None of them argued against it as they didn't have the energy to do so and lied down without thinking a single thing. Except Newt, who just sat there beside Thomas without saying anything or looking at him.

"Newt, get some sleep." Thomas whispered, not wanting to wake anyone up.

"It's fine." Newt said is hushed voice. "I'll stay up with you."

"Why?"

"It's better if two of us are on the watch. That way we won't have to worry if one of us fell asleep." Newt looked at the open desert in from them. "And talkin' will keep us up."

"So… you're not mad at me now?" Thomas asked.

"What're you talkin' about? I'm not mad." Newt was trying to make up with Thomas, but he won't be admitting it out loud.

"Yes, you are."

"I'm not! What makes you think so?"

Thomas just looked at him. "You've been acting… different."

"Different how?"

"It's fine." Thomas also won't admit that half of his attention was on Newt all the time, even though they were running for their lives. "Forget it." He said that but kept glancing at Newt every now and then.

Newt was silent for a moment, "Okay, I'm sorry."

"Why are you apologizing?"

It's not like Newt could just say, 'I'm sorry, I was being jealous. I think I like you, but you obviously like Teresa. And I know it's not her fault nor do I hate her but every time you both are together, I'm sorry to say, but I feel like killing myself.'

Instead of saying all this, Newt put his head between his hands and groaned. He looked at Thomas's worried face. "Nothing, Tommy, I'm really not mad at you. You didn't do anything wrong." He replied. "I'm just embarrassed at how I behaved back then. I should have trusted you, but I was blinded by the fake comfort of that place. And I even yelled at you a few times."

"Oh, That's fine." Thomas smiled, and Newt looked at him astonishingly. "You did trust me. And you can yell at me whenever you want." Thomas grinned.

"Huh?"

"It's cute." Thomas replied after seeing Newt's expression. "It doesn't bother me at all."

"You've gone crazy." Newt said, not meeting Thomas's eyes. "Did you hit your head or somethin'?"

Every time Newt thinks of dropping it all and dumping his feelings, Thomas goes around saying stupid things like this and digging all his feelings right back up.

The heat was threatening to crawl up his face, so he quickly changed the topic, "Now tell me, this Right Arm, what all do we know about it?"

Thomas expression turned into a serious one too. "I heard Janson and Ava when I was in that room. She was angry at him because Janson wasn't able to track down the Right Arm. Apparently those people attacked two of their mazes and took all the children."

"But does it mean that the Right Arm rescued them from WICKED? What if they are also just as bad?"

"We can't be so sure about that." Thomas didn't know why, but for some reason he felt like he could trust the Right Arm. It was just like how in the maze he had felt like he wanted to be a runner. "We'll just have to try."

"Okay, but what if the Right Arm turned out to be worse? What then?" Newt asked. They had to have a backup plan. They can't just go with the theory of 'enemy of my enemy is a friend'.

Thomas thought seriously for a moment and said, "Then we'll run away from them."

"Pfft." Newt tried not laugh and wake anyone.

"What?" Thomas smiled a little, too, seeing him.

"Nothing. It just seems like the solution to almost all our problems is to run. Running in the maze, running from WCKD, running from cranks" Then slowly his face turned a little grim. "Do you think there'll come a time when we won't have to run?"

"I like running with you." Thomas said without thinking, and Newt turned to look at him with eyes widened. Thomas blushed as he heard what he said and coughed, "I mean, it's nice. It's good for health, running, that is. We should run, ahem." He tried to stop himself from saying anything more stupid. "If we run, we get to go new places and… uh… new experiences, a big world… I don't think I'll mind experiencing it, if it's with you…" Thomas couldn't look at Newt, so he turned his head to look straight ahead at the vast desert and added, "…all." in order to not make it more embarrassing.

"Yeah." Newt smiled. "The moment when we had just come out of the maze, I felt this… urge to see all the places that there were. But then… when we were in the helicopter, all I could see was just plain desert and nothingness." Newt looked down dejected at the memory.

Thomas remembered the time in maze when Newt had told him that he liked greenery. Because of that, he used to stroll in the woods every morning. 'He must have been very disappointed.' Thomas wondered, 'Maybe that was another reason he didn't want to leave the facility.'

"But right now," Newt looked up at the sky. "I don't hate it." 'Because it's with you.' was left unsaid.

Thomas followed Newt's gaze and saw the sky filled with millions of stars. Even though there was no moon, the light from stars alone was enough to light up Newt's eyes and fill them with hope.

The wind had gone colder, making Thomas shiver. Newt noticed that and moved to take something out of his bag.

Thomas was looking curiously at him when Newt suddenly turned around and wrapped a dark red colored scarf around Thomas's neck. "Here. It's getting cold."

Thomas saw that Newt had a same scarf wrapped around himself as well. Newt had brought one just for Thomas, but he wasn't going to tell him that.

After that they both fell into a peaceful silence as the night slowly passed away.

When the morning came, Thomas dreaded at the realization that he had fallen asleep. He quickly got up and saw that Newt was also sleeping, but his movement had woken him up. He let out at a sigh and thanked whoever was above that nothing had happened to them during the night.

"I fell asleep?" Newt rubbed his eyes as he got up, feeling the same guilt.

"It's fine. Last night was exhausting." Thomas reassured him. "Good thing nothing happened."

Newt still wasn't happy about it but didn't say anything.

Slowly, everyone woke up. "Okay, we should get moving." Thomas said without wasting any time. "Let's pack it up."

All of them got up and started getting ready for their journey ahead. Suddenly, as they were about to leave, Winston groaned.

"Hey, man." Frypan went up to him and helped him up. "You okay?"

Winston just nodded and started moving. Frypan stayed close behind him, in case he fell.

Winston was badly injured. Cranks had caught him and leaving scratches on his chest last night. All of them had quickly pulled him back from the cranks and helped him run with them. None of them gave a second thought about his scratches because one thing they all were sure of was that they all were immune. Immune to the virus. Immune from becoming cranks. So, they all just carried on further without thinking more of it.

As the morning came, the temperature rose unusually fast. Thomas removed the scarf from his neck and put it in his pocket.

Now, in daylight, that they could finally see, they saw the ruins of what looked like a city. Large buildings, vehicles, streetlights, all turned to dust.

"What the hell happened to this place?" Frypan asked as they unhurriedly walked through the ruined roads of the city.

"I don't know." Newt replied, looking around. "It doesn't look like anyone's been here in a long time."

"I hope the whole world's not like this." Aris voiced out what everyone was thinking.

Suddenly, Thomas said, "Hang on, stop."

"Do you hear that?" He asked.

It was gradual, but they could hear a noise from afar. They all looked around to see which direction the noise was coming from, when abruptly the noise started increasing.

Thomas's eyes widened, "Get down! Everybody, hide! Hide! Hide!" He urged them.

All of them realized at the same time, it was the sound of an aircraft coming closer and closer towards them. They all quickly hid beneath a large broken cemented plank. The second they got beneath it, a large aircraft with two helicopters on it's both side passed above them.

"Oh shit." Newt's voice was almost muted because of the sound of those aircraft.

"They're never gonna stop looking for us." Minho said when the aircraft had gone away. "Are they?"

Nobody wanted to respond to that question. So they all came out from their hiding space and started moving further. The noise from the aircraft gave them away, so they were able to dodge and hide from them easily.

After a while, they noticed that the aircraft were moving away from the city. "They're probably going back to refuel." Minho said.

Realizing that the direction the aircraft were going was where WICKED's facility was, they all made their way towards the opposite direction and reached the boundary of the city.