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THE first thing she felt when she opened her eyes was the cold metal beneath her.
She'd assisted in the swipe enough to know that she was in the box, and she was being sent up to the maze. But this one was different, it wasn't like the one for Trial A, it was another one, one she didn't recognize.
Sitting up, she took note of the gown she was still wearing, why hadn't she been dressed like all the other subjects sent inside?
Esther reached her hand to the back of her neck and gently rubbed at the sore skin, they'd sliced it open and tried to install the chip, and while it worked, the swipe hadn't taken it's hoped effect. She should've been dead, they didn't put malfunctions in the maze, they killed them behind the privacy of closed doors before telling the others that they had turned out to be susceptible to the flare and had a bad reaction to treatment.
She would never understand the cruel ways of WICKED. Ever.
Sitting up she scooted backward and pressed her body into the hard metal frame behind her, she wondered which maze it was she was being sent to, which hell they'd tossed her into.
She knew they were watching her.
She could feel it.
They had never been subtle unless it gained them a reaction of sorts that they were unable to gauge with their tools.
Using the wall for support, she stood her feet burning with every passing second as she stood across the metal panel below her.
"I KNOW YOU CAN SEE ME!" she yelled her voice echoing throughout the shaft as it continued to ascend the sight of an end- or top- out of sight.
The one thing she couldn't remember, was why she remembered, how she did.
It shouldn't have been possible.
And yet, there she sat, in the hospital gown with her fists clenched at her sides as she thought about the boy and the brunette female, all she could think of was how she'd dosed her and demanded Thomas attempt the operation a second time.
She wished she had gotten the chance to pummel Teresa with her fist, watch as the girl let out a gasp, and tumbled to the floor in shock, but she couldn't. She was being sent into the maze, and as to which one, she still wasn't sure.
Esther didn't bother to stand, she knew what was coming, the sickening lurch that would occur as the elevator slammed into the top of the shaft, she knew it would be less painful if she stayed seated on the floor.
So she did.
And picking at the ends of her shirt, she thought about what her next move would be.
