Chapter Text
He remembers a cold evening, which is odd because he doesn’t remember the outside as being very cold. This must be the coldest he’s ever been. He can’t quite tell if the snowflakes adrift in the air are actually snow or if they’re sand or ash, but they glow softly in harsh lights that blur into the background.
Everything has a faint blue tinge to it, and he remembers iron bars that criss cross and look a bit like monkey bars if he squints. Behind the chain link fence, a yellow and black striped train pulls into some sort of station.
He feels a tug on his hand. The boy looks up into the eyes of a woman whose face he can’t quite place.
He thinks she is his mother.
She’s kneeling down, thin grey coat dragging against the dirty floor. He’s not sure if she’s searching his face for signs of hatred or signs of forgiveness, but he’s decided that he’s somewhere in between. Though her eyes are green and hold familiarity, her voice, despite being wrought with love-induced pain, sounds somewhat foreign.
“Baby, it’s going to be okay,” the woman sobs. Even though he can’t see it, he knows that patrol guards are coming up behind him and the woman. But they are here for him, not his mother. “You’re going to be okay, baby, you’ll be safe,” the woman repeats, her arms still outstretched as he is being led away. “You’ll end up safe, Thomas, I promise,” she tells him, tears in her eyes, arms starting to fall to her sides as her son begins to board the train.
He knows he should remember who she is.
“Thomas,” a woman says, and his focus shifts to her, but her voice is colder than his mother’s and horrifyingly familiar, a fake softness that drips with artificial sympathy. She is dressed in all white, and her coat is illuminated with every flash of light from the tunnel that the train runs through. “It’s okay.”
The assurance does little to console him. He wants to go back to his mother, and this woman will never be anything like his mother.
The world shifts and Thomas is in the Maze again.
Or rather, he’s in the box going upwards towards the Maze, but the distinction means nothing to him when he’s about to relive hell all over again.
“No no no no No NO NO!” he yells, his back slamming against the mesh walls. Thomas doesn’t feel any of it. The strips of light that flash as the box goes upwards reminds him of the train, but the red lights signalling the top of the elevator shaft remind him of his worst nightmares.
Thomas’ eyes snap open at the last second, his brain no longer filled with the rattling of the Box, but rather the whirring of helicopter blades and distant yelling.
***
The dunes of sand were dusty and slippery, and Thomas almost starts sliding the moment he plants a foot on the ground. He doesn’t fall, if only for the guardsman holding him up with one arm, their other arm resting on their gun. The distant screaming and shooting continues. He finds that there isn’t much time to think about anything before he’s being whisked away.
There’s something just on the tip of his tongue, something he didn’t want to forget… but his head was still fuzzy with sleep and he was already several feet away from the helicopter before he remembers: Chuck’s carving.
The guards were doing all they can to wrangle him back, but Thomas was already taking off and doing what he does best: running. He makes it to the helicopter, with its blades barely stilled, and rifles through the pockets of a bag. The arms of a guard loop around his stomach and yank him away from the helicopter, but not before Thomas’ hand closes around the carving.
Despite the distant yelling that Thomas had barely even noticed, and the much louder and more frequent gunfire, Thomas allowed himself to be pulled back to the group and ushered into the compound.
Once corralled into the compound, the giant doors shut immediately, locking with a definite and loud click. Thomas could only stare at the inside of the compound. The movements of the people moving around were almost mesmerizing; Thomas hadn’t even thought of where they might be going, much less what they would find inside the compound.
After the group was lead down the halls, a guard showed them to a dinky looking workshop space, with materials and ladders and all sorts of objects. Instinctively, Thomas still felt on edge, and he started thinking about which objects could be used to break out of this place.
Which was wrong, since they were safe. There was nothing to fear, nowhere to break out of. Right?
“So what now, Tommy?” Newt asked, legs propped up on some empty sacks laying discarded in the corner.
“Uh,” Thomas supplied eloquently, his mind elsewhere. He caught himself doing a quick headcount, which was a little ironic since he was the only one who had actually run back to the helicopter. His heart leapt in his throat when he realized how few of them were left. “Well, we’re safe now, right? Away from wicked?”
“I’d drink to that,” Frypan said amiably, and the Gladers all laughed.
Thomas settled for an easy smile.
“As soon as they give us something to drink,” Winston joked, and slowly but surely the tension between the Gladers broke. The teens started to relax and engage in easy conversation, all except for Thomas.
Despite the guards who rescued them, the fact that they were away from whatever the things outside were (he’d filed that away as something to think about at a later time), and the fact that Wicked would never touch them again, Thomas couldn’t help but feel as though something was off, or a strange sense of deja vu.
The door made a clicking noise and all of the Gladers stopped talking immediately, feeling their blood run cold before they realized that the noise was not a Griever approaching.
A silver haired, weasley looking man entered the room, two guards flanking the man as they entered behind him.
Thomas’ stomach dropped as soon as he saw who it was, and now he was left with the undeniable sinking feeling that he had seen all of this before.
Janson?