James Dashner - The Scorch Trials

“Let’s go,” Minho said when everybody was ready. Then they were off.

Across the dry and dusty land they walked. No one needed to say it, but Thomas knew everyone was thinking the same thing-they no longer had the energy to run while the sun was up. And even if they did, they didn’t have enough water to keep them alive at a faster pace.

So they walked, sheets held over their heads. As food and water dwindled, more of the packs became available to use for protection from the sun, and fewer Gladers had to walk in pairs. Thomas was one of the first to be alone, probably because no one wanted to talk to him after hearing the story about Teresa. He certainly wasn’t going to complain-solitude was bliss for now.

Walking. Breaks for food and water. Walking. Heat, like a dry ocean through which they had to swim. That wind, blowing stronger now, bringing more dust and grit than relief from the heat. It whipped at the sheets, made it harder to keep them in place. Thomas kept coughing and rubbing chunks of accumulated grime from the corners of his eyes. He felt as if every swallow of water only made him want more, but their supplies had reached dangerously low levels. If there wasn’t fresh water in the city when they reached it…

There was no good way for him to finish that line of thought.

They kept going, each step becoming just a little more agonizing, and quiet set in. No one talked. Thomas felt like even saying a couple of words would expend too much energy. It was all he could do to put one foot in front of the other, over and over and over, staring lifelessly at their goal-the ever-nearing city.

It was as if the buildings were alive, growing right before their eyes as they got closer. Soon Thomas could see what had to be stone, windows glimmering in the sunlight. Some seemed to be broken, but far less than half. From Thomas’s vantage point, the streets seemed empty. No fires burned during the day. As far as he could tell, not one tree or any other kind of plant existed in the place. How would it, in this climate? How could people possibly live there? How would they grow food? What would they find?

Tomorrow. It had taken longer than he’d thought, but Thomas had no doubt they’d reach the city tomorrow. And though they’d probably be better off going around it, they had no choice. They needed to replenish their supplies.

Walking. Breaks. Heat.

When nightfall finally came, the sun disappearing below the far western horizon at a maddeningly slow pace, the wind picked up even more, and this time brought the slightest chill. Thomas enjoyed it, grateful for any relief from the heat.

By midnight, however, when Minho finally called on them to stop and get more sleep, the city and its now-burning fires ever closer, the wind had become even stronger. It blew in gales, whipping and curling with increasing power.

Soon after they stopped, as Thomas lay on his back, sheet tucked around him and pulled up tightly to his chin, he looked up at the sky. The winds were almost soothing, lulling him to sleep. Just as his mind got hazy from exhaustion, the stars seemed to fade away, and sleep brought him another dream.

He’s sitting in a chair. Ten or eleven years old. Teresa-she looks so different, so much younger, yet it’s still clearly her-sits across from him, a table between them. She’s about his age. No one else is in the room, a dark place with only one light-a dull square of yellow in the ceiling directly overhead.

“Tom, you need to try harder,” she says. Her arms are folded, and even at this younger age, it’s a look he doesn’t find surprising. It’s very familiar. As if he has already known her a long time.

“I am trying.” Again it’s him speaking, but not really him. It doesn’t make sense.

“They’ll probably kill us if we can’t do this.”

“I know.”

“Then try!”

“I am!”

“Fine,” she says. “You know what? I’m not speaking out loud to you anymore. Never ever again until you can do it.”

“But-”

Not inside your mind, either. She’s talking in his head. That trick that still freaks him out and he still can’t reciprocate. Starting now.

“Teresa, just give me a few more days. I’ll get it.”

She doesn’t respond.

“Okay, just one more day.”

She only stares at him. Then, not even that. She looks down at the table, reaches out and starts scratching a spot in the wood with her fingernail.

“There’s no way you’re not gonna talk to me.”

No response. And he knows her, despite what he just said. Oh, he knows her.

“Fine,” he says. He closes his eyes, does what the instructor told him to do. Imagines a sea of black nothingness, interrupted only by the image of Teresa’s face. Then, with every last bit of willpower, he forms the words and throws them at her.

You smell like a bag of crap.

Teresa smiles, then replies in his mind.

So do you.

Thomas woke up to wind beating at his face and hair and clothes. It felt like invisible hands were trying to rip them off. It was still dark. And cold, too, his whole body shivering from it. Getting up on his elbows, he looked around, hardly able to see the huddled shapes sleeping near him, their sheets pulled tightly against their bodies.

Their sheets.

He let out a frustrated yelp, then jumped to his feet-at some point in the night his own sheet had slipped loose and flown off. With the tearing wind, it could be ten miles away by now.

“Shuck it,” he whispered; the howl of the wind stole the words before he could even hear them. The dream came back to him-or was it a memory? It had to be. That brief glimpse into a time when he and Teresa had been younger, learning how to do their telepathy trick. He felt his heart sink a little, missing her, feeling guilt over yet more proof that he’d been part of WICKED before going to the Maze. He shook it off, not wanting to think about it. He could block it out if he tried hard enough.

He looked up at black sky, then sucked in a hurried breath as the memory of the sun vanishing from the Glade came rushing back. That had been the beginning of the end. The beginning of the terror.

But common sense soon calmed his heart. The winds. The cool air. A storm. It had to be a storm.

Clouds.

Embarrassed, he sat back down, then lay on his side and curled into a ball, his arms wrapped around himself. The cold wasn’t unbearable, just a vast change from the horrible heat of the last couple of days. He probed his mind and wondered about the memories he’d had lately. Could they be lingering results of the Changing? Was his memory coming back?

The thought gave him mixed feelings. He wanted his memory block finally cracked for good-wanted to know who he was, where he came from. But that desire was tempered by fear of what he might find out about himself. About his role in the very things that had brought him to this point, that had done this to his friends.

He needed sleep desperately. The wind a constant roar in his ears, he finally slipped away, this time to nothing.

The light woke him to a dull, gray dawn that finally revealed the thick layer of clouds covering the sky. It also made the endless expanse of desert around them look even more dreary. The city was so close now, only a few hours away. The buildings really were tall; one of them even stretched up and disappeared in a low-hanging fog. And the glass in all those broken windows was like jagged teeth in mouths open to catch food that might be flying about in the stormy wind.

The gusty air still tore at him, and a thick layer of dirt seemed forever baked onto his face. He rubbed his head and his hair felt stiff with wind-dried grime.

Most of the other Gladers were up and about, taking in the unexpected shift in the weather, deep in conversations he couldn’t hear. There was only the roar in his ears.