Chapter Text
Thomas jerked awake as a hand touched his shoulder. He turned and squinted into the darkness, making out the outline and the glinting eyes of Minho by the dying embers of the fire.
“Wha--” he started, but Minho shushed him, and an uncharacteristic seriousness settled over his features.
“We need to talk,” he whispered. His eyes glanced around at the sleeping bodies. “But not here.”
Without waiting for another word, or even looking back to see if Thomas followed, Minho rose and walked away from the fire, one of the many spotting the grassy valley near the coast where the group had made camp.
The first day in Paradise had passed in a blur of activity, a throng of humans loosely organized in an attempt to survive. They came with nothing, no food or water or supplies, and so the first day was little more than a mad dash for dinner.
The result was a flavorless and too small serving of fish and berries. Thomas went to bed hungry that night, him and the other two hundred immunes. Minho’s promise of a better tomorrow did little to sate their growling insides.
Thomas sighed. For a moment, he considered ignoring Minho and falling back asleep. He shook his head and rubbed his eyes, sitting up and casting a look toward Brenda. She was at his side, curled into a loose ball and facing away from him. They were close, but not touching, and Thomas held back the urge to run a hand through her hair, which laid on the grass around her head like a shadow.
He got to his feet and went after Minho. His friend’s outline was barely visible as he marched toward the forest, his pace not even slowing as he stepped over and around the slumbering bodies that littered the ground.
Thomas was careful as he walked, uninterested in disturbing someone’s sleep as much as he was in making sure this meeting, or whatever it was, stayed secret. If it was enough for Minho to take him away from the group in the dead of night, then secrecy was probably important.
He followed the Keeper into the darkness, the fires at his back and the stars in the sky doing little to illuminate their surroundings. Soon, there were no people to step over, only the occasional rock, half of which Thomas didn’t see until he’d already stumbled over them, biting back curses as he regained his balance. Minho didn’t stop, nor did he stumble. He was walking directly toward a wooded area that reminded Thomas eerily of the Deadheads.
Thomas quickened his pace, catching up with Minho as the older boy reached the edge of the woods. Minho stopped so suddenly that Thomas had to swerve to avoid running into him.
“Give a guy some warning, shank,” Thomas said, keeping his voice low despite their distance from the others. He glanced back at their encampment, the vague outlines of sleeping people and the small bursts of light from low burning campfires, now nothing more than embers. He wasn’t sure, but they couldn’t be too far from dawn.
Minho was silent, his posture tense.
Thomas frowned and cleared his throat.
“What’s all this about? Why the sudden need for privacy?”
Minho turned to Thomas and the look on his friend’s face sent a shiver down his spine. It was cold and machine-like. It was completely out of place on the hot-headed boy’s face.
And his voice… Thomas felt a cold dread settle in his stomach when Minho spoke. That sound would plague his nightmares for years to come.
But it was the words that made it all worse.
“Your participation in Phase Three of the Trials has been most informative,” Not-Minho said (because Thomas knew that this voice, these words and that cold look couldn’t belong to the boy he had run through the Maze and across the Scorch with). “WICKED appreciates your sacrifice.”
Thomas’s eyes widened, he felt his pulse speed up, jump into his throat as he tried to swallow around it. He opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was something between a squeak and a gurgle. He felt the telltale sting that came before tears.
He stepped back and felt his heel catch something. He stumbled and landed on his butt, his teeth clicking together on impact. Somehow, there was no pain.
He wanted to scream, but somehow knew that the sound would never make it out.
Not-Minho stepped forward and knelt and Thomas didn’t do a thing, frozen as the world crashed down around him.
“Your patterns have been logged and the variables adjusted,” Not-Minho said, his voice losing more and more of the human tone with each successive word. “It’s time to come back out.”
The thing wearing Minho’s face looked up and Thomas followed its gaze. The sky above them was black, not a star in sight. He looked to his right, the edge of the forest where Not-Minho had led him. Nothing. Only inky blackness, void as far as the eye could see.
He looked to the campsites, knowing what he would find but dreading it nonetheless. The campfires that had barely cast any glow were gone, and he knew it wasn’t because they went out.
He looked back at Not-Minho.
“No,” he muttered, his voice gravely and almost silent. He felt tears slip down his cheeks. He swallowed and repeated the word, louder but still weak to his own ears.
“Yes, Thomas,” Not-Minho said, and as it spoke, it seemed to be fading into darkness. “It’s already begun. You’re waking up.”
“No,” Thomas said again, his voice stronger now. His eyes were open, but he saw nothing, the entire world around him only a black abyss, devoid of everything.
A disembodied voice spoke once more, the sound now purely robotic.
“This concludes Phase Three of the Trials. WICKED thanks you for your participation, Subject A2.”