AN OUR LATER, EVIE WAS STILL LYING
on her bed, thinking about Janson's words, when she heard a thundering noise coming closer. She heard metal rattling under her bed and flinched. Her body tensed up, then she looked under her bed, straight into Thomas's eyes.

"Evie." He murmured.

"Thomas what the-" She wanted to ask him, but he cut her off.

"No time. Come on!" He waved his hand as a sign for her to follow him. His tone left no room for an argument and he seemed terribly stressed. He crawled backwards along the shaft again. Evie climbed after him as he crawled around the corner.

"Thomas, what's going on?!" she asked.

"It's WCKD!" Thomas hissed. They crawled through the shaft. He crawled around the next corner.

"Wait, what-" Evie was interrupted directly.

"No time to explain, come on!" He seemed to have reached the end of the shaft.
As Evie rounded the corner, she saw the Glaser boys peering into the shaft. Newt reached out his hand and pulled her out, smoothly, before he urged her to run with the others.

"Wait, someone has to come with me." Aris said, climbing back into the shaft Evie had just come out of.

"Why-..." Frypan wanted to ask.

"You want to get out of here, don't you?" the blond asked.

"I'm coming with him," Winston said.

"Alright then." Newt answered and they started running after Thomas, through the hallways.
Evie tried to process what was happening and connect the dots, but she barely had time to do so.

"Why do you want to get out of here? What happened??" she asked, stressed.

"I'll tell you later," said Newt, grabbing his leg even though he was barely limping.

"Are you okay?" asked Evie, panting.

"I'm fine." Stubborn as ever, he stared ahead. They raced around the corner as they ran into one of the doctors. She stared at the teenagers in front of her as if they were ghosts. Then she took a deep breath.

"Why aren't you in your quats?" she asked, careful of her voice as an alarm sounded at that moment.
Thomas made short work of it and decided to take her as a hostage with them.

"Where's Teresa?" Thomas asked. Evie looked around and counted whether their group was complete.

"Stop right there!" a guard shouted and shot at them. They ran in the other direction.

"Why are they shooting at us?!" Frypan shouted, but no one could answer his question.
Minho suddenly stopped and then ran back.

"Minho!" Evie shouted in shock and the others turned around too. Minho jumped onto the guard, who then hit the wall and was knocked unconscious.

„Good Job Minho."
Thomas grabbed his gun and they ran on. They came to an examination room where the doctor had led them. Thomas threatened the people, who were terrified and ran together in a heap.

"WHERE IS SHE?!" Thomas shouted before he discovered Teresa on a bed. They tied up the doctors while Thomas took care of the brunette girl.

"Guys! They're coming what should we do?" Frypan asked excitedly. Evie looked at the windows that gave a view of the corridor. Guards could be seen running towards the room from a distance.

"Fry move!" Newt shouted, knocking over a table. They pushed it in front of the door so it couldn't get opened, but this wouldn't hold for long so they needed a way out.

"Okay we need to get out of here. Where do we go?!" Minho asked, still pointing his gun at the door. Thomas grabbed a chair and smashed the glass with Newt.
They climbed over it and Evie only realized at that moment that she wasn't wearing shoes. She then felt two arms around her, lifting her up.

"Come on." Newt said and lifted her over the broken glass.

"Thanks." Evie said and ran after Thomas, down the corridors. Another guard came towards them and Thomas shot him. The gun seemed to contain no regular bullets, it was some kind of stun gun. The man fell to the floor, shaking from the electric shocks, before falling unconscious.

Shit.

The others seemed to be thinking the same thing, because their expressions looked just as shocked. Frypan's question from a few minutes ago had been answered as to why they were shooting at them. The bullets weren't supposed to kill them, just make them unable to do anything.
The kids walked on until they arrived at a gate. Thomas swiped the card through the slot, but it didn't open.

"Open up. No, no, no, no." Thomas mumbled and kept trying. But it didn't work.

"Access denied." a soft, electronic voice sounded.

Shit.

"Thomas!" someone shouted from behind and they whirled around.
Janson came running up with a dozen guards. Thomas pressed the card into Minho's hand, grabbed the gun he had taken from the guard and stood up. He ran towards Janson, who raised his arms.

"Open this door Janson!" the brunette shouted threateningly. But Janson remained calm.

"I'm sure you don't want me to do that."

"OPEN THIS FUCKING DOOR!" Thomas shouted again, louder this time, with a hint of panic. Minho, meanwhile, continued to try to open the door, cursing.

"Klonk card!" he hissed.

"Listen to me. I'm trying to save your lives. The maze is one thing, but you won't last a day out there in the scorched desert!" Janson nodded at Thomas.

"If the elements don't kill you, the Cranks will!" He shouted further.
Evie stared at the man. Trying to understand whether he was the bad guy or the good guy.

Thomas was not swayed by his words and continued to aim at the man with the gray hair. She wondered what had happened that Thomas was now pointing a gun at the man who had claimed to save their life from WCKD.

Was there a chance that WCKD were the good guys and he was the bad guy? Were they waiting outside to take them away and that's why Thomas wanted to get out of here?

"Thomas! You have to believe me." Janson walked on slowly.

"I only want what's best for you," he said, spreading his arms out invitingly. Thomas seemed to think for a moment. For a second, Evie thought he was going to drop the gun too.

"Yeah, let me guess WCKD is good?" Her brother murmured as the atmosphere changed completely.
The expression on the gray-haired man's face changed to a mischievous grin.

"You're not getting through that door."
Janson's tone had hardly changed, but his demeanor had changed dramatically.
His grin widened.

Evie stared at the man in horror. So he had something to do with WCKD? He was with WCKD?
A beeping sounded and the gate behind Evie opened.

"Hi guys!" Aris and Winston emerged. Evie looked back at Janson, whose grin was now completely washed off his face. He looked at Aris and then at Thomas.

"Come on, let's go!" Evie pushed the boys through the gate. Thomas was still standing in front of Janson with the gun in his hand.

"Thomas!" Evie called after him.

"Come on Thomas get out of here!" The boy turned to Janson and fired at him. He moved slowly backwards, whereupon Janson began to speak into his watch. The gate began to close.

"Thomas!" Minho shouted. The brunette boy kept shooting at the guards with the shields until he ran out of ammunition. He threw the gun towards Janson and ran as fast as he could towards the gate.

"Go Thomas!" shouted Newt and the others began to cheer him on. Thomas dropped to his knees just before the gate and slid under it. He made it just before the gate closed and stood up. For a moment he had to find his balance and the others held him by the shoulders to support him.

Janson arrived at the door and tried to open it, but failed.
Thomas gave Janson the middle finger.

"You little piece of shit!" cursed Janson.
They ran through a large warehouse until they arrived at a huge gate. Thomas opened it and immediately the wind blew sand in their faces. Evie stared in amazement at the mountains of sand dunes that could be seen.

The earth was scorched, so they were in the middle of a desert.

"Get out of here!" Thomas shouted and they ran out into the dark, scorched desert.
They scampered up the sand dunes. Behind them were search parties looking for the kids.

"Shit!" cursed Thomas. Evie looked around, trying to make out anything, but all she could see was sand and black night. The wind blew her hair into her face and the sand stung her eyes.

"Go on!" Thomas shouted.
At some point, Teresa separated from the group and ran towards a sunken building.

"Teresa wait!" Thomas called after her as she climbed through a shattered pane that must have once been a window. The others scrambled after her, as everyone wanted to find shelter from the cold desert. Evie ran down a mountain of sand, then finally stood on solid ground.

"What is this place?" Minho asked, flicking on a flashlight. The cold light stung Evie's eyes.

"Are you okay?" Newt asked beside her and she nodded.

"Now tell me, what happened?" She repeated her question, which no one had really answered yet.

"Thomas stole the card from that guard, that's why he got all puffed up, this morning that shank," Minho told her, shaking his head.

"And then what happened?" asked Evie sternly. She really wasn't in the mood for Minho's jokes and put her arms on her hips.

"Let's get going!" Thomas urged the group.

"Thomas, no." Teresa, who had just been listening to Evie, disagreed. Thomas didn't hear her and mumbled something to himself. He seemed terribly nervous and you could see the sweat of fear on his forehead.

"Thomas." Evie now spoke and Thomas turned around.

"But we have to go-..." he started to say when Teresa cut him off.

"I wanna know what's going on here!"
Teresa must have been the most confused. She had just woken up from her beauty sleep and suddenly got forced to run a marathon through the desert.

"I'd like to know that too." Evie crossed her arms defiantly in front of her chest.
Thomas approached the two of them.

"It's WCKD! It's WCKD, they lied to us. We never escaped!" he paused for a moment.

"We found lifeless bodies. Too many to count." He continued. The idea sent shivers down Evie's spine.

"Are you saying they were corpses?" asked Minho. Thomas shook his head.

"No.. but they weren't alive either," he replied.

"They hung them.. up. They were connected to tubes." The muscles in Evie's body almost tensed as she hung tensely on what he'd say next. She couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"The taps.. they get sucked empty there." She looked at Thomas more shocked with every word.

"We have something inside of us that WCKD wants. Something in our blood. That's why we have to get as far away from them as possible!" Thomas finished.
Now everyone looked at Newt. After all, he was still their leader. He hesitated, ran his hand over his chin and then put his hands on his hips.

"Okay. So what's the plan?" The blond asked and Thomas fell silent.

—

Hehehehehehwh🤭🤭

-

"You do have a plan, right?" Newt asked more urgently.

"Yeah.." Thomas stuttered, but he didn't sound very convincing.

"We followed you out here Thomas and now you say you have no idea where we should go and what we're doing?!" Newt accused him. Evie grabbed his arm and he flinched almost imperceptibly. His eyes met hers.

"Wait." Aris now spoke.

"Janson-... said something about... People hiding in the mountains. Some kind of a resistance or army."

"The right arm." Thomas whispered. He looked up.

"The right arm." He repeated louder this time and began to fidget excitedly again.

"If they're really against WCKD, maybe they can help us," Thomas said with conviction.
Newt looked skeptically back and forth between the two of them.

"People." he then spoke.

"In the mountains? Mountain people. That's your plan?!" he asked, a hint of mockery in his voice.

"It's the only chance we have," Thomas said quietly, almost intimidated.

"Hey guys! Look at this!" Winston shouted and the attention was on him. He was kneeling in the sand and seemed to have discovered something.

"Minho shine a light over here." he said and we gathered behind him.
Minho shone his light on the spot in question.
Footprints could be seen in the sand.

"Someone was here before us."

-
2100 words