Eating the lunch helped all of them to regain their energy. After they finished, the same guard approached them and again took them to the same room. All of them took their respective seats while the guard again played the video.
"Well then let's continue from where we left." He said he pressed the play button on the big screen.
Minho groaned, "Ugh, How much of it is left?"
"Uh, you have reached the year 2020 and the current year is 2137. So, about a century. Don't worry, it'll be over before dinner time." and the guard left, grinning at their reactions.
Just as the door closed behind him, Minho got up and went towards the big screen, pausing the video.
"What're you doing?" Newt asked.
"I'm not gonna sit around and watch a century long world history. So, I'm skipping to the important stuff." Minho replied.
"And you know when the 'important stuff' starts?" Thomas asked sarcastically.
"I do. That lady back in the maze said it all went wrong when the shucking sun scorched the earth. So, let's find out when it happened. Now, how the hell does this thing work." Minho said, looking at the screen.
"Try to scroll or swipe the screen." Newt suggested.
Swiping worked, but it was taking too long. Minho's arm started to hurt after swiping right to left for some minutes.
"Dude, you only skipped a couple of years." Thomas said.
"You do it then!" Minho snapped, but Thomas didn't make any effort to get up from his seat.
"How come these years are much longer than the previous ones?" Newt asked. "The hell happened at that time?"
"Coronavirus?" Thomas suggested as he remembered this name inside his brain suddenly.
"Maybe." Minho shrugged, leaning on his hand placed on the right side of the screen to rest, and the video started playing with increased speed. "Whoa... oh, great!" Minho grinned, looking as the fast forwarded through all the decades.
They couldn't make out what was happening in the video because of it's increased speed. All they could make out were different colours on the screen. After a couple of minutes, the colour changed from different bright colours to the dark ones and then to bright orange and yellow. Minho paused and went back a little in the video and pressed the play button.
At the right bottom of the video, it showed that it was the year 2101.
The voice in the video explained how this was the year when the sun scorched the earth. The video showed different types of people praying to god and the others still fighting each other.
Minho tried to skip some part of it but accidentally skipped a decade past, so he rewound the video back.
"Just lightly tap on it." Newt told Minho.
He pressed the screen and this time skipped more years than before. Newt got up from his seat and reached near the screen. "Lightly! I said, lightly tap on it." He tapped on the screen and skipped some years.
Now, the video showed the year 2105. All they could see in the video was desert. All the small cities, destroyed and the big ones deep in sand. The population's rate decreased with 20%.
The sea level rose due to the melting of all the glaciers. All the small islands, towns, villages and cities near the ocean submerged inside it. Only 15% of land was left. The rest, 85% of the earth, was just the ocean.
It was in the year 2106 when it finally rained for the first time in after five years. But then it didn't stop for a whole six months. And then it didn't rain for the next six months. This cycle went on for four-five years. It would rain for six months, then not a single drop for the next half of the year.
Then came the Flare Virus, in the year 2111.
It only affected the weaker human population like the old people and the ones with less immunity in their body. It affected the people by making them a little angry and most of the time on the edge of snapping at others. People ignored it at that time, as the doctors described it as the result of constant stress from the past decade.
Within a year, younger and healthy people also started getting affected by it. It was then the doctors found that it was the virus that was causing it, the Flare Virus, inside their brains.
During this time, the raining cycle slowly started changing from six months to five months. It rained for five months, then after four months of dryness it rained for three months. This went on until one, the rains again stopped. Now there were only black clouds and storms which were big enough to destroy large buildings.
Doctors and researchers from all countries held various meetings trying to solve this problem when the virus started triggering their physical health long with their mental ones.
They got so frustrated and angry that they started committing suicides. So, many people locked themselves in a room and died while their loved ones watched them and couldn't do anything to save them.
In the year 2113, scientists, doctors, researchers and army from all around the world came together, started an organization and called it WCKD.
While the army tried to protect the citizens from the affected ones, scientists tried to understand anything they could about the virus. They found out that the non-stop rain for half of the year resulted in the emergence of this virus inside the human brain. The changes in the environment slowly started degrading the human brain.
Because the WCKD didn't know any properties of the virus except that it makes them angry, they couldn't find any cure or solution for it. All the remaining governments got together to build a city surrounded by giant walls for keeping the rich and important people safe in the year 2114. WCKD also built a base secured from the outside world, still trying to figure out the virus.
They thought that this virus only develops in weak mind (like people who suffering through depression, stress or anxiety) but were proven wrong when it started spreading through physical touch by the year 2115, irrespective of the condition of their mental state. The society divided into three types of people: the ones that got naturally affected, the ones that got affected through touch and the ones that kept their distance from those who were affected.
In 2116, people infected started getting more aggressive and started killing other human beings. The process of driving into the madness was fast. It took them just two-three months to change into a monster which either kills other human beings or itself.
The army couldn't control the spread, so a lockdown was imposed. People were locked inside their houses while armies supplied them with all the supplies through helicopter and bergs.
People infected were protected by their families and friends, who locked them inside a room in their homes. Which was really painful for all the people. Either they watched the infected person commit suicide or get killed by them.
Scientists discovered that the aggression only came in the presence of an unaffected one or alone. But if two infected people were in a room, they didn't try to hurt each other or themselves.
So, the army let people keep their infected loved ones for fifty days, after which they were taken away from them to a place restricted to only the infected ones and the army made sure they stay.
People started being careful and prevented themselves from encountering the infected ones, which were started to being called cranks. Boundaries were made around their cities by the army to keep any crank outside. But people, one day or the another, did start showing symptoms of the virus even if they didn't come in contact with a crank. It became like a natural thing to get infected by it sooner or later.
In the beginning of the year 2117, researchers found out that when the cranks weren't able to feed for a long time, they started going into some sort of hibernation. No one was able to research further on that because if they got close enough to the body of a crank in hibernation, it got the scent of them and killed them right on the spot.
For a long time, WCKD continued to find a cure for this virus. But with all the tries, all they found was disappointment.
Until one day during the year 2118, a scientist found that the newborn generation had a chemical inside their brains which prevented them from getting infected by the virus through physical touch. So she came up with a theory that if the younger generation can't get infected through physical touch, they may not be able to get infected at all, even with time.
That scientist, Ava Paige, was appointed as the new head of WCKD for her research. She also suggested of using the new and younger generation for finding the cure.
For the next two years, WCKD tried to find a way of converting the chemical inside the younger generation into a cure. They found out that not all the newborns had the chemical present inside them. Only a few chosen ones were immune to the virus.
In the year 2120, they were finally able to extract the chemical from a child's brain, but only after she suffered through immense pain, which in the end resulted in her death.
This incident raised a lot of controversy and almost resulted in the shutting down of WCKD. But all was forgotten when they created a vaccine and passed out to people for free. The vaccine they created prevented people from getting infected through touch. This ensured a lot of people to spend more time with their loved ones without being afraid of getting infected.
WCKD continued his search for finding out the cure and preparing more vaccines without losing more lives.
In the year 2125, WCKD announced that it had found a way to make a cure for the Flare. All they needed were the younger generation. People desperate to be free of the nightmare voluntarily gave up their children to WCKD for the sake of their safety.
WCKD prepared a set of test series for the children. It provided them with advance knowledge of science and technology from a young age.
Slowly, WCKD started hiding all its activities from the public. It started testing on children in secrecy. No one knew what was happening inside the walls of WCKD's facilities, while people outside were dying every day rapidly.
People decided that they didn't want any cure at that time. They only wanted to find out what was happening inside the walls of WCKD. People formed alliances against WCKD, but weren't able to find anything.
Until in the beginning of the year 2136, some information from one of the WCKD's base was leaked.
The leaked information had the coordinates of large mazes which WKCD had built around the globe where they had held groups of immune children captivated.
All the people came together and started a rebellion against WCKD. The army joined forces with the people to free the children from WCKD's hold.
After a year of planning and war, in 2137, WCKD finally lost and remaining people slowly freed all the children one by one...
"... If you're watching this, then you're probably one of those children that WCKD held captive. You're free now. The world out there is dangerous, but outside those dangers lies the beauty of nature, which is slowly reverting to its true form. So just relax and enjoy until your times come to meet the real freedom." with the screen turned black.
"What in the bloody hell...!"