ACT II SCENE XLIII
EUPHORION

   CASSANDRA DIDN'T remember walking off on her own. She took a deep shuddering breath as tears pooled around the corners of her eyes, spilling down her stained cheeks in deep trails. Her entire body shook and as she sobbed quietly into the light breeze.

The tears blurred her eyesight, but she could still see Nick's figure in the distance staring back at her with his dull green eyes. When she had woken up after dozing off for a while, she instantly knew that something was wrong. Everything swirled and danced in front of her, as if they were melting away before her very eyes. Then she saw him.

At first she thought that she was dreaming but she could make shapes out—the Gladers, the mountains. Every time she took a step towards Nick, he would turn around and walk away until she stopped. They repeated the process until she was convinced that it was all in her head, that none of it could be real.

Her body felt weak and her knees gave way. She didn't dare open her eyes when the tears stopped flowing, afraid that the world still blended together in a chaos of indistinguishable shapes. She sobbed again but no tears came this time, her body just trembled. After a while, she heard heavy footsteps approaching.

"Cassie?" Minho called.

"What happened?" Thomas asked worriedly.

"Cass, are you alright?" Newt panted lightly.

She had her face buried in her hands as she still refused to open her eyes. A hand touched her shoulder and she shivered. "Cassie..." Minho coaxed gently. "Just open your eyes and tell us what you see."

She nodded reluctantly, then slowly opened her eyes a fraction. Traces of tears still blurred her vision and she blinked them away. A purple glow shot through the pale blue sky behind the mountains. Nick was gone, like a mirage, and she took a deep shuddering breath.

"He's gone," she whispered.

"What happened?" Thomas repeated anxiously. "Who did you see?"

"It was Nick," she finally told them. "He's been haunting me..."

"Bloody hell," Newt swore. "Cass...it wasn't your fault, alright?"

She shook her head. "It's not that...I...I remember him. When I was a child, he..." She swallowed thickly while her heart ached with sorrow. "I rescued him from some Cranks and he promised he'd do everything it took to make it up to me. He...did he remember all that? During the Changing? Did he know all along who we were?"

She bowed her head in dismay, unable to go on. If only she had remembered it all earlier. There was something else but it kept slipping away from her. Something familiar—a name—at the tip of her tongue. It was because of her that WICKED came up with a blueprint of analysing the Killzone patterns and designing the Trials. She was the instigator, the one who set their plans into full motion and threw their lives into complete chaos.

She was their Tragedy.

Everything started to come back into clear focus as the sun crawled up from its bed beneath the line that separated the earth and the cosmos. Minho gauged the distance of the mountain range and then turned towards them

"We're gonna reach those shuck mountains today," he said. "I'm gonna wake the others up. If any of you wanna eat and drink, do it on the way."

They continued to drag their feet towards the now distinguishable shape of the jagged peaks that ran along the mountain range. Brown lifeless rock, dotted with dead trees, stood proudly before them as if they were silent sentinels waiting to greet their new guests. They were so close to their destination now but Cassandra didn't want to take another single step towards it. There was something there, she knew, waiting for her beneath the deep shadows of the pass.

"Ow," she muttered when she bumped her nose against a back. "What the heck, dude."

Cassandra looked up and saw that Thomas' body had gone completely rigid as he stared off into the distance. Her eyes followed the direction of his gaze and found something moving towards them from the mountains. At first she thought it was another mirage, then the figure came closer. She could see a long spear gripped in tightly clenched hands. Dark curls streamed behind her as the girl stomped her way towards them. Her brows were pulled over biting cold blue eyes, a scowl twisting her lips slightly to the side.

Teresa.

Cassandra could feel her lips automatically stretch into a wide smile at the sight of her friend. It quickly fell though when Teresa continued to stare them down with something akin to burning hatred. Minho gripped her arm tightly by her side and they exchanged concerned looks. Something was off.

"What's she doin'?" Newt asked quietly beside Minho. "Why does she look like she doesn't recognise us?"

Thomas frowned and took a step forwards before halting once more. On both Teresa's sides, two more figures joined her advance towards their group. He turned around with eyes wide, and they followed his confused stare to find more figures emerge into view. The newcomers closed in around the Gladers, surrounding them on all sides in a perfect circle, with various weapons drawn in their hands.

A whole group of girls with fierce faces and tensed muscles ready to snap at the first sign of trouble.

Group B.

Cassandra drew in a quick breath and turned back around to face Thomas. Their eyes met, both with anxious apprehension. Teresa had her piercing gaze focused on Thomas' face, a cold flame danced in her azure eyes. Cassandra swallowed uneasily as she took in the other group, the light from the rising sun glinted off the blades and arrowheads pointed in their direction.

She looked to Minho with barely concealed panic and he understood that they were in danger. He drew his knife and that seemed to be the signal for the Gladers to brandish their own weapons.

"What's this crap about, Teresa?" he asked snarkily. "Nice way to greet your long-lost buddies."

The blue-eyed girl started in their direction, her boots sending tufts of dust swirling in the air behind her as she stomped towards them. Her hands continued to clutch the deadly spear in an iron grip.

"Teresa?" Newt raised an incredulous eyebrow. "What the bloody—"

"Shut up." It sent them reeling back in shock with how commanding her voice sounded. "Any of you makes a move, the bows start shooting."

Teresa swung her spear back and forth between them, causing Minho to pull Cassandra away to the side as the girl moved past them. Her eyes searched the group of Gladers around her, flickering between each wary face, until she stopped in front of Thomas.

"Teresa," he whispered as their eyes met.

"Shut up," she retorted harshly.

It happened just as Cassandra blinked, but the next thing she knew was that Teresa had brought the butt of her spear crashing into Thomas' face. She started in surprise and the dawning of fear. Thomas fell to his knees, a hand clutching his right cheek in obvious pain.

Minho started towards them, reaching a hand out to grab the spear, then Newt cried out loudly. Cassandra staggered backwards as he flew into Minho, knocking him to the ground just as an arrow flew past right in front of her face. It grazed Newt on the shoulder before impaling itself into the cracked ground.

"Newt! Minho!" she cried in panic and rushed towards them. Minho looked fine but blood was staining Newt's sleeve. It was nothing lethal but Cassandra tore a strip from the hem of her shirt to cover the wound.

"Consider that a warning," Teresa said emotionlessly.

"Teresa, what the hell?" Minho looked at her angrily.

"Stop, stop!" Cassandra waved frantically. "Everyone stop! Teresa, we can work—"

"I said shut up," the girl growled, holding her spear up warningly. The she turned back around "Is your name Thomas?"

His mouth fell as he gaped at her in disbelief. "You know who I—"

Another loud thwack resounded as she rammed the end of her spear into his head again with more force than was necessary. Cassandra continued to hold Minho down as they stared in growing incredulity.

"You know who I am!" Thomas yelled at her.

"I used to, anyway," Teresa said with venom and disgust. "Now I'm going to ask you one more time. Is your name Thomas?"

"Yes! My name is Thomas!"

She nodded once before starting to back away from their group, pointing the blade of her spear savagely in front of her. Teresa re-joined the circle of girls and looked around before resting her gaze on Thomas once more.

"You're coming with us," she called. "Thomas. Remember, anyone tries something, the arrows fly again."

"What about the girl?" someone asked, a blonde with pigtails and carrying a bow.

Teresa looked at her and Cassandra felt her heart thump painfully. "You're welcome to join us."

"You know this is where I belong," Cassandra said, not taking her gaze off of the girl. "You too."

"I have to do this."

She shook her head, trying to tell her that she didn't have to, but Teresa's eyes were adamant. "Enough. This isn't some stupid game. I'm going to start counting. Every time I hit a multiple of five, we'll kill one of you with an arrow. We'll do it until Thomas is the only one left, then we'll take him anyway. It's up to you."

"What the hell is that shuck girl up to?" Minho seethed.

Cassandra wished she knew, that Teresa would just tell her what's going on and not be so damn mysterious about everything. Her head was already suffering enough without all the added confusion and worry. How could they trust her when she was acting this way?

"One!"

Thomas started to walk forwards and Minho called for him to wait. "She's gonna kill you, you stupid shuckface!"

"Don't be a bloody idiot, Tommy!" Newt shouted, panic evident in his voice.

He ignored them, slowly making his way to Teresa before standing right in front of her. "Fine. Take me."

"I only made it to one," Teresa responded.

"Yeah. I'm really brave that way."

She beat him down to the ground with her spear again. Thomas spat out and his saliva was tinged red. "Bring the bag," Teresa called.

Two girls broke the formation of the circle and went towards Thomas. A tall dark-skinned girl with wild unruly curls was holding a worn burlap sack as she approached the boy on the ground. They paused for a moment as Teresa started yelling again.

"We're taking him with us! If anybody follows, I'll hit him again and we'll start shooting you. We won't really bother aiming. Just let the arrows fly any old way they feel like."

"Teresa!" Minho called angrily. "You catch the Flare that quickly?! Your mind's obviously gone already!"

She slammed the butt of her spear against the back of Thomas' head again and they winced at the loud crack resounding from the impact. He collapsed flat on his front into the dirt, groaning in pain.

"Anything else you wanna say?" She looked at them evenly. Minho took a step forwards with a biting look on his face, but Cassandra held him back with terrified eyes. He looked at her as she shook her head frantically. "Didn't think so," Teresa continued. "Put the bag over him."

The two girls grabbed Thomas, hauling him off the ground and he groaned as they roughly handled him. The dark-skinned girl bent over him with the sack in her hands. She paused and Cassandra thought there was genuine pity on her face as she looked down at the poor abused boy.

"Better just to go along and let us kill you. Doesn't do any good to have a lot of pain along the way."

She slipped the bag over his head, pulled it across the rest of his body and tied the end at his feet with a rope. Both the dark-skinned girl and the one with blonde pigtails grabbed the end of the rope around Thomas' head.

Then they started to drag him away.