THE GROUP DECIDED TO SPLIT UP AND
explore the place. They searched for clothes, food and especially water. Anything they would need to survive in this desert. Evie walked alongside with Teresa, rummaging through the bags and suitcases. She still needed shoes and perhaps a jacket.
She found a few irrelevant notes and letters, pictures of families or children. Someone had obviously lived here.
Too many questions were running through the girl's head. She felt uneasy about what Thomas had told her. The fact that WCKD was their enemy caused an inner conflict in Evie's stomach. The memory of Ava Paige assuring them that they were the solution to everything spun in her head on repeat. Her soft voice and blue eyes that held something motherly in the insides of them.

But did she really mean to kill them and use their blood?

"What do you think happened to these people?" Evie asked the brown-haired girl beside her. She shook her head and Evie saw a picture between her fingers.

"Probably died. Or got infected and turned into Cranks." Evie's gaze snapped to her.

"Where are you?" Teresa whispered to the picture she was holding in her hand.

"Cranks? What are cranks?" Evie asked, remembering that Janson talked about something that's called ‚cranks' too. Teresa again looked at the bag she was rummaging in.

"The people who got infected by the flare. The disease Ava Paige talked about." She replied.

"How do you know that?" Evie asked as Teresa tossed her a pair of boots. Evie looked at her socks, walked towards Teresa and found a jacket as well.

"Take anything you can find." Teresa said, avoiding Evie's question.

"Teresa." The blonde girl took her hand and stopped her from continuing her actions.

"They brought back my memories." the brunette said. Evie abruptly let go of her as if she'd been burned by it.

"What?" Evie asked. Teresa stood up and put on a jacket. She walked around and illuminated the room with her flashlight. Evie slowly got up and followed her.

"What do you mean, can you remember?!"
Suddenly she was startled by something behind Evie and the blond girl whirled around gasping. But all she saw were mannequins, quite disfigured. The face of one of them was melted and burned and the clothes on them were torn.

"Everything alright?" Newt called out. He looked worried.

"Yeah we're fine." Teresa confirmed. We walked on.

"You remember?" Evie asked again when the light came on. Now they recognized a lot more of the rooms, if you could even call it that. Evie discovered a smashed mirror and looked at herself in it.

"A lot of things, yes." Teresa replied. Evie thought about her own memories.
Suddenly they heard screams from far away, coming closer and closer. When Evie went to see what was going on, Thomas and Minho came running.

"RUN!" they shouted and Evie didn't understand what was going on until she saw that some people were after them. They were emaciated, completely disfigured and let out unnatural screams.

"Shit!" Evie cursed, grabbing Teresa by her sleeve and pulling her along as she tried to put on her own jacket. They ran up the escalators.

"Minho! Thomas! What kind of creatures are those?" Winston shouted.

"I don't know, keep running!" Thomas shouted back.

"They're cranks! They're infected by the flare!" Teresa answered Winston's question.
They ran for their lives, pounding their feet into the ground. Evie could feel sweat forming on her forehead and didn't dare look back.

"Shit!" cursed Thomas as one of the Cranks got in his way. They backed away but Aris ran at him and knocked his leg away.

The boy had guts.

The Crank fell to the ground in front of them and they continued to run up the escalators. When the crank crawled towards Teresa, she threw her flashlight at him and he fell to the ground again.

They reached the top of the escalator and then charged onwards, over a bridge. Another crank jumped through the glass and pounced on Newt.

"NEWT!" shouted Evie, running towards him. The boy was laying on the ground and the crank on top of him, trying to bite him. Evie tried to push him off Newt and Thomas came to her rescue.
He pushed the Crank through the glass and off the bridge.

"Are you okay?" Thomas asked and pulled Newt up.

"Thanks Tommy!" said Newt and they ran on down a narrow corridor. They rattled the doors and behind them they could already hear the screams of the Cranks. The group kept running and the monstrous humans came around the corner.

"It's a dead end!" Minho shouted in panic and Thomas shook the doors.

"Get us out of here Thomas!" shouted Teresa. The cranks kept coming closer.

"THEY'RE HERE!" shouted Thomas and they all rammed themselves against the door.

"I'll stop them!" yelled Winston. He pulled out a gun, which Evie wondered where he got that from, and shot at the Cranks.
They managed to get the door open and all ran inside. Winston followed them, but was pulled back in seconds.

"WINSTON!" They pulled at him. The Cranks scratched his skin under his T-shirt and Winston cried out in pain.
These screams went through Evie's marrow. She opened her eyes and saw Jeff being grabbed by the Grievers again. His screams echoed in her ears just as Winston's did now.

They managed to get him out of there and ran on. Evie felt herself trembling.
Chuck's lifeless body lay before her eyes, Thomas crying and shaking him, desperately screaming his name.

They found shelter in a part of the ruins. Evie hadn't really realized where exactly they were. She was far too busy sweating and shaking. She couldn't think straight and the world seemed to be spinning around her ears.

What was that?
Who were they to run away from sick people, if you could even call them that, in a desert?

One of the Cranks screamed again and Evie flinched. She felt an arm around her shoulders and was surprised when she looked into Thomas's eyes. He pulled her into his arms and stroked her back reassuringly.

"Are you okay?" he whispered. This behavior was probably as new to him as it was to Evie, but there was something familiar about it.
Evie nodded and rested her head on his shoulder. He stroked her arm as he rested his head on hers. This was the first time Thomas had shown his brotherly affection for her.
Exhaustion and tiredness caught up with Evie and she allowed her eyes to drift shut.

—

When Evie opened her eyes, she was no longer in Thomas's arms, but in Newt's. The boy was turned to her and peacefully asleep.

She looked at him, scanning every single detail about his face. The scar on his cheek from the maze. His long eyelashes from his closed eyes.
She put her hand to his jaw and traced the contour of his face, looking at the way his shoulders rose and fell evenly. She thought back to the night in the maze when they sat on the tower. Everything seemed to be alright after the final talk they had about everything that was going on.
Newt opened his doe-brown eyes and Evie was startled for a moment.
She noticed his hand on her back and felt his breath brush across her face. She thought about saying something as Newt continued to stare at her.

It gave her the same tingling sensation she'd felt less than a week ago in the maze when he brought her back to her sleeping place. When he kissed her and it felt like a dream cause they never talked about it again.

Who would have thought that everything would change so abruptly. Now they were no longer in the maze but in a desert with brain-eaten people.
The events of the night before flashed through Evie's mind. She felt Newt's face move closer to her. Her stomach twisted when she felt his hand pulling her lower back closer to him. Her hand laid on the material of his jacket, when she closed her eyes.

"Guys, get up! We have to keep going! Are you ok Winston?" Minho interrupted them. Newt and Evie scooted apart and stood up hastily. Newt looked down at the ground as he wrapped a scarf around his neck, his cheeks burning. Evie grabbed her bag, trying to slow her rapid beating heart.

They packed up the few things they had with them and moved on. Out of the building, a town spreading before them.
But it could no longer be called a 'town'. It was the ruins of houses, with not a single spark of life in sight. There were rocks, rusted metal and cars everywhere. Evie let go of the breath she had been unconsciously holding.

"What the hell happened here?" Frypan asked the question that everyone was probably asking themselves.

"I don't know.. but it looks like no one's been here for a long time. I hope the whole world doesn't look like this." Newt replied. An image came to Evie's mind. Like back then in the glade, it flashed in her mind like an electric shock.

—

She looked down at thousands of little lights. A train snaking its way through the big buildings.

"Newt, this is beautiful," she heard her voice say.

—

Evie's eyes met those of the blond boy, his eyes narrowed to not be blinded by the sun. A feeling of emptiness spread through Evie, she had to remember something that was on the top of her tongue, but she simply couldn't do so.

She ran alongside Thomas as they walked through the ruins and junk. Evie noticed how Thomas stopped and tensed up.

"Wait.. Stop!" he said and now the others stopped too.

"Do you hear that?" He asked and Evie held her breath as she heard it too. It was a roaring sound, the ticking of a propeller. Her heart stopped for two beats and her stomach turned.

WCKD.

"Everybody HIDE! Hide!" Thomas called. Evie's heart began to race and her eyes frantically looked around for shelter. She felt Newt grabbing her Hand, as he under some torn down walls, along with the others. Newt pulled Evie close and tried to shield her with his own body. She felt his gaze burning into her, when she looked up to the sky.

The stapling grew louder. Evie's eyes widened when she saw the huge drone-like aircraft flying above them.
Next to it were two helicopters, that flew along with it. It disappeared behind the buildings and they came out of their hiding.

"They'll never stop looking for us." Minho said. They all knew it was WCKD and it would always be WCKD. The thought about WCKD, who they believed to be dead, hunting them, made Evie's stomach turn painfully. She also felt some sort of shame because she was the one working for them but at the same time she couldn't help but have only good memories about Ava Paige and the institution. She thought about the memories of Ava Paige's proud look, when she looked at Evie and her tender hand on the girls shoulder.

And there it was again.
The feeling that she had forgotten something important. A fog that build itself up, everytime she thought about her past and it was driving her mad.

"Then we just shouldn't stop hiding" The blond girl said and stood next to Minho, who was watching the planes.
They passed through the town and out into the desert again.

They walked up a sand dune and took a short break. However, Winston's strength gave out and he fell forward into the sand like a puppet whose strings had been pulled.

"Winston!" They shook his shoulders, but he didn't move.
They had to carry him, so they built a stretcher, hoisted him onto it and dragged him further across the desert. At some point, they arrived at a shelter. They took a break there.

—

Thomas and Evie stood on one of the sand dunes and looked into the distance.

"Thomas?" The brunette boy looked at his sister, when she murmured his name. It was still quite strange to hear and see the familiarity in her words and actions, even when she was just calling his name. It was just like he knew every bit of her by the memories he had of her and at the same time, the girl in front of him was a total stranger.

"Do you remember our parents?" She then asked. She bit her lip, nervously.

"Yeah." Thomas replied, letting his eyes scan her face and nervous body language.

"Our mother gave us to WCKD when we were kids." he then said and Evie nodded in confirmation.

"Yeah a-and our father got infected by the virus." Saying the word 'father' sounded strange and sent a shiver down Evie's spine. Thomas looked at her. He scanned her with his eyes when he looked like he wanted to say something. A long silence hung between them.

"They were talking about you." he then said, looking to the ground. Evie's head shot up to him. Thomas brown eyes then looked straight at her.

"Ava and Janson." Thomas added. Evie's eyebrows grew together.

"Ava? Ava Paige is dead." She tilted her head slightly, thinking that he was about to say that he meant another Ava. But she didn't know any other Ava and neither did Thomas as he shook his head.

"No. She's not." He said in a short breath.

"I saw her." he then said, looking to the ground again.
Evie swallowed.

Ava Paige was alive?

"The video in the maze.. it was to trick us. I saw her talking to Janson, about us.. about you." He explained

"What.. What did they say?" Evie asked, her voice unsure. What would Ava Paige say about her?

"Something about-.." Thomas looked at his hands.

"That you are, where they need you to be." He looked into her eyes as if he was trying to read her mind. Evie looked away from him, down at her feet,

"What's so different about me?" the blonde girl asked. Thomas shook his head.

"We did something. Something that they put us in the maze for." He then said, hoping that his sister knew. But once again, Evie had a fog on the tip of her tongue. This time she felt it soclearly, it was exactly this information that had been taken from her in some way. Her hands went to her head.

"What is it?" Thomas asked.

"I have the feeling I knew something. I knew something and now it's not there anymore." She shook her head. She was so confused about her memories and what Thomas just told her.
Ava Paige was alive and worked together with Janson, who wanted to kill them?

"Evie-.." Thomas was about to say something and took a step towards his sister, when they heard a gunshot and the boy looked past her to the others of the group. Evie had ducked her head and was now also looking back.

"Winston!" Frypan shouted in terror and they immediately ran back.

"What's going on?!" Thomas asked alarmed.

"I don't know, he suddenly just took the gun and tried to-" the boy tried to explain but broke off.

"Hey.. Winston. Are you okay?" Thomas asked, trying to help Winston. But the boy was now turning on his side and spitting black liquid onto the dry sand. They backed away from him.
Winston laid down on his back and pulled his shirt up to show them his lower torso.

"It's growing inside me!" he said and Evie drew in a sharp breath.
His belly looked unnatural. She could hardly describe it. It was as if notches had been cut into his stomach.

He had become infected.

-
2664 words

-