INNOVATION - CHAPTER SIXTEEN

⚘ BAD, BAD, BAD, BAD ⚘

The silence was deafening. But beneath the bated breath there was true, unmistakeable fear. Kalisa was no stranger to the feeling, but she had never seen the boys around her so unsure.

After a minute Alby called, "Medjacks!" Clint and Jeff broke away from the crowd and joined the select few at the front.

"What do we do with her?" Clint asked.

"How should we know?" Alby snapped. "You two shanks are the Medjacks, figure it out."

Clint kneeled to the ground beside the girl and began checking for a pulse and heartbeat, occasionally feeling her clammy forehead as well for a fever.

"Hey, who said Clint got first shot at her?" There was a call of laughter from the boys that made Kalisa ill. "I'm next."

Alby looked at Kalisa who stepped forward to defend the girl, "If anyone here touches this girl," He started, an unhumerous grin making mark on his face. "You'll be spendin' the night out there with the Grievers. Banished no questions."

Jeff stood from the ground with Clint, "She seems okay. Regular breathing patterns, normal heartbeat. I'd say she's in a coma, but your guess is as good as mine." That did little to reassure Kalisa.

"Take her to the Homestead." Alby ordered, before looking to the other girl, "You, go with them. No one touches her you understand?"

A curt nod was all her recieved before Kalisa went off after the Medjacks. Behind her she heard the Gladers break apart, going back to their duties, grumbling about the newest arrival.

    When they reached the Med Room inside the Homestead, Clint and Jeff laid the girl out on one of the beds, resting her head on a flat pillow.

    Kalisa sat next to the bed, in an uncomfortable wooden chair, as Jeff filled a glass with water and handed it to the girl.

    "Will you pour this in her mouth? We need to get her some fluids, and if she doesn't wake up soon then she'll need food too."

    "How long does it normally take to come out of a coma?" Kalisa asked, taking the glass.

    "We don't know, nobody here's ever been in one." Clint sighed, staring at the girl curiously. "You happy to have another girl around?"

    "Yeah, I mean I'm sure I'll be a whole lot happier when she actually wakes up but..." Kalisa trailed off, struggling not to spill the water as she poured it in the girls mouth.

    "You think the Greenie had something to do with this?" Jeff questioned.

    "How could he?" Kalisa shook her head. "I'll admit he was acting odd, but I don't think he has bad intentions."

    Jeff hummed unconvinced, "I heard from Chuck that he wants to be a Runner."

    Kalisa almost dropped the glass. "You're not serious,"

    "Thats just what I heard." Jeff held his hands up in defence.

    "Shuckin' insane." Clint stated plainly, and Kalisa couldn't agree more. The Maze was ridiculously dangerous, or so she'd heard.

    But just the plain sight of the Grievers was enough to convince Kalisa to stay away, apparently Thomas was on a different wavelength. Why he actually wanted to go out into a place like that was beyond her.

    After what felt like an hour, Clint and Jeff both agreed that the girl would need food. They sent Kalisa down to the kitchens to collect some soup, so that they could feed it to her through a tube.

    At first Kalisa was weary of leaving the girl, but after observing Clint and Jeff for a while she determined that they weren't a threat. All they wanted was for her to wake up.

    Upon walking into the kitchens Kalisa was surprised to find Chuck instead of Frypan, Tyler, or any of the other cooks. The kid sat perched on the wooden table, eating an apple contently.

"Hey kid, what are you up to?" Kalisa greeted, drawing his attention to her.

"Oh hey Kalisa, I'm making a sandwich, you want one?" Chuck offered.

"No thanks, is there any soup in there?" She questioned, tilting her head towards Frypan's fridge.

"Mmm, I don't know, I'll check." The boy opened the doors and dug around.

"Where's the Newbie?" Kalisa asked, realizing the boy was nowhere around Chuck like he usually was.

    Chuck hummed as if he just remembered, "Oh, he went exploring a bit ago. Kinda thought he'd be back by now."

    Kalisa furrowed her brows, a dreadful feeling forming in her stomach. "How long ago did he leave?"

    Chuck shrugged and took another bite of his apple. "Maybe 30 minutes? Hey I found soup!" He turned to face the girl but found an empty room.

    Kalisa bolted from the Homestead and out into the Glade. All around boys were doing their jobs, though many were just standing around talking, occasionally pointing to the Homestead clearly in reference to the new girl.

    Kalisa looked around for Thomas's brown hair and blue shirt, but found no match. He could be anywhere, and for all she knew he could be perfectly fine, but there was something off about the whole ordeal. It was an eerie sort of chill, one that Kalisa had trouble placing.

    In the silence of the Glade she focused on her own heartbeat, looking around once again before stopping suddenly. Her eyes went wide with realization.

    Silence?

    The Glade hadn't been silent since.... Since Ben had been stung.

    Kalisa took off at a run for the woods, mind racing with thoughts. She had just been in the Med Room! How could she have forgotten to look for Ben?

    Everyone had been so caught up in the girls arrival that they had forgotten all about their other patient, the dangerous one. And now he and Thomas were missing.

    Kalisa didn't know what happened after the Changing, but from what she'd heard it was nothing good.

    As she ran further into the tree's a scream sounded, just feet away from her. "Thomas?" She called, moving towards the voice and drawing her knife.

    "Help me!" He yelled, sounding in pain.

    When Kalisa arrived at the scene she wasn't surprised to see Ben attacking Thomas, but she was surprised at how horrible the stung boy looked. It was as if the life had been drained out of his body, just leaving behind skin, bone, and an angered soul.

    His eyes were blood shot with bags underneath, glaring at the boy beneath him. His clothes were tattered and shredded, showing off his bandaged wounds from the Maze. He was slick with sweat and blood, black veins peeking out from under his shirt.

    For a moment Kalisa was frozen as she stared at the ex-Runner. But when Thomas screamed again she snapped out of it, noticing that Ben had the boy pinned down, one of his boney hands gripping Thomas's throat, the other holding the Newbies arms above his head so he couldn't fight back. She didn't know what was wrong with Ben. She didn't know why he was attacking Thomas. But she did know that it was up to her to save him.

Kalisa barely even thought before launching into action. The girl tackled Ben, her weight throwing them both off of Thomas, rolling down the hill and hitting stones and sticks as they went. A yelp from Thomas was the last thing Kalisa heard before being lifted by the neck and slammed to the floor, knocking the wind out of her.

She didn't have time to gasp for air before Ben hissed in her face, kicking her in the ribs with a crazed look in his eyes. "Stay out of this Shankette, or I'll do worse than just kick you." His voice was deeper and gruffer than she remembered, almost as if it wasn't really Ben who was speaking.

"Stop it," Kalisa groaned, but was ignored. Ben turned his back to the girl and started back towards Thomas who had been watching the exchange with a slack jaw. Kalisa wanted to shout at him to run, but her voice wouldn't work.

Instead she forced herself to her knees, then used a tree trunk to pull herself up to her feet, wincing as she went. Now wasn't the time to be weak. If she didn't do something soon, Thomas would die. She had no doubt that Ben had malicious intentions, and though that would have once sent her running in the opposite direction, now Kalisa stood strong, drawing her long knife from her Slicer belt.

Ben was almost to Thomas when he was pushed to the ground once more. Kalisa stood over him with a clenched jaw and ready stance, "Thomas, run." She breathed as Ben screamed and lunged for her.

Like her muscles had a mind of their own Kalisa ducked out of the way just in time, bringing her knife up as she went, ultimately slicing Bens abdomen. He gave a cry of anguish before throwing a wild punch at her face, which Kalisa caught and twisted at an unnatural angle. Just when she thought everything was going well, Ben's other hand came out of nowhere and smacked her upside the head, making Kalisa's teeth rattle.

Momentarily she was stunned and unable to move. Forcing herself to blink and tune back into the fight Kalisa noticed Ben had grabbed ahold of her knife and was now pursuing Thomas once more, apparently deciding she wasn't worth the trouble.

"Shit," She muttered, dizzily chasing after the boys. Up ahead Thomas looked back in fright, tripping over a tree root once he saw Ben. He hit the floor hard, and wasn't given time to stand before Ben was on top of him again.

As Ben raised the knife Kalisa was prepared to attack again, but a shrill voice sounded through the forest, stopping everyone and everything. "Ben!"

Kalisa looked behind her to see Alby holding a wooden bow and arrow, aimed directly at Ben's heart. She had never seen the boy look so deadly before, though he normally was intimidating, now he was a full other species of scary. Alby's dark eyes had no humor, his lips were set in a deep frown, and his eyebrows were furrowed in concentration, as if the slightest movement would set him off to release the deadly arrow.

"Ben," Alby repeated, "Stop right now or you ain't gonna live to see tomorrow."

"If you kill me," Ben licked his lips quickly, spit flying everywhere as he spoke. "You'll get the wrong guy. He's the shank you wanna kill."

Kalisa didn't know what to do with herself. Ben clearly wasn't right in the head, all sense of humanity drained by some outside force. He now stood on a very dangerous line, one between life and death, and Kalisa got the sense that it wouldn't end very well for the mad boy, no matter what he ended up doing.

"Don't be stupid Ben." Alby said, sounding rather calm as he held the arrow steady, still aimed at Ben. "Thomas just got here- ain't nothing to worry about. You're still buggin' from the Changing. You should've never left your bed."

"He's not one of us!" Ben bellowed, looking accusingly at Thomas who just appeared to be confused. "I saw him- he's... bad. We have to kill him! Let me gut him!"

"You leave that to me and the Keepers to figure out Shuckface." Alby snarled. "Back your scrawny butt back to the Homestead, Kalisa will take you,"

Kalisa would rather dive head first into the Box hole.

"No!" Ben cried. "He'll wanna take us home, he'll wanna get us out of the Maze! Better we all jumped off the Cliff! Better we all tore each others guts out!" Kalisa winced involuntarily at his words, almost picturing the scene as he spoke.

"Ben," Alby said calmly, never moving the bow nor his eye-line. "I'm gonna count to 3."

"He's bad, he's bad. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad-"

"One." Alby started.

"Bad, bad, bad, bad," Ben started smiling, showing his rotting black teeth and purple saliva that dribbled down his chin and stained his shirt.

"Two," Alby said, sounding more stern. A warning. Would Alby really shoot a Glader?

"Ben- I'm not.... I don't even know"- Thomas never got to finish. Ben screamed at lept out for the boy, his knife slashing through the air, getting closer and closer until... snap!

Alby's arrow shot through the air, finding its home in Bens cheek.

The crazed boy's head snapped to the right upon impact, his body twisting unnaturally before collapsing to the ground in a heap. Red blood began to pool around his unmoving body, the stench familiar to Kalisa, but somehow different. She had just grown used to dead animals, a dead boy was a whole other story.

She felt unwell as she gazed over Bens body. He had once been a happy and carefree Glader, just like the rest of them. And now he was dead like so many others.

"Come on, Bagger's'll take care of him tomorrow." Alby spoke, finally lowering his bow and forcing his eyes away from Ben, before fleeing from the scene, gone before Kalisa could even process his words.

The dark haired girl blinked numbly, too many emotions coursing through her blood at once. Was she supposed to grieve? Celebrate? Cry? Shout? Question? Next to her Thomas appeared to be going through similar emotions.

The boy stumbled over the body, looking extremely pale. "W-what-" He couldn't get a word out.

Seeing him so lost and puzzled only made Kalisa feel worse. How was she supposed to comfort him? She brushed away the single tear that fell from her eye, forcing it to the back of her mind to save for later. Right now she needed to be strong, for Thomas.

She noticed he had a limp from when Ben tackled him. "Let's go, you need to see the Med-Jacks."

Kalisa started off the way Alby had gone, Thomas following behind her in complete silence. She felt bad for the boy, she remembered what it had been like when she had arrived, things had been bad enough as they were, but arriving and someone being killed right before her? She wouldn't have been able to handle it then. She didn't even know if she could handle it now.

When they reached a clearing in the trees Thomas bent over next to a bush and threw up. Kalisa frowned in sympathy before awkwardly patting him on the back as he coughed and sputtered.

"You're alright Thomas, just breathe." She muttered, allowing the newbie to stand back up.

"What just happened?" Thomas breathed. Kalisa sighed, of course Thomas would be asking a question at a time like this.

"I don't know. I haven't been here much longer than you, remember?" Kalisa frowned.

"It was so... wrong. To just watch him die." Thomas's voice broke.

Kalisa sighed, "We didn't have much of a choice. Ben was already gone when he found you, Alby just completed what the Creators started."

They were quiet for a minute, before Kalisa cleared her throat, swallowing the sickness that threatened to make an appearance. "C'mon, I don't wanna stay here any longer." Thomas simply followed after her, clearly agreeing.

We're finally getting into the action! Writing fight scenes are so fun, but it's also really difficult. Somehow I always end up having to act it out in order for it to make sense- it's not a cute sight. Thanks for all the feedback and reviews, you guys are the best! Happy reading!

1/7/24

2600 words