The First Gladers; Into the Scorch

Chapter 14: What Could've Been

 Your whole life, or at least what you remember of it, has just been a series of cliche 'It couldn't possibly get worse' moments. You've actually caught yourself thinking that exact phrase several times over the past two and a half years. Without fail, it always gets worse.

Now you're periodically running and walking through the driest, most barren desert on the planet, to your knowledge, with barely a crumb to eat or a drop of water to drink. Winston is nearly dead from heat stroke and extensive injuries. Minho and Thomas are near faint from carrying Winston for the last five miles. Aris's mind has gone numb from Fry's complaining. And you're trapped in awkward silence under a beset with Newt. Not to mention the extensive sun burns which are being constantly whipped and slashed at by flying projectiles of sand.

It couldn't get much worse, right?

In fact, a slowly growing silhouette of what seems to be a city, brings hope that things are about to get better.

"You guys see that!?" Minho shouts through his panting breaths as he runs in front of the group.

"It looks like a city!" Thomas shouts.

"You think we could take shelter there over night?" Fry asks hopefully.

Minho glances up at the sky, trying to figure out the position of the sun without scalding his eyes.

"Minho, try not to fry your eyes, you're going to need those." You remark as he whips his head toward the ground, groaning in pain.

Minho turns to face you, attempting to glare at you, while still covering his eyes with the palms of his hands. "Thanks Picasso." He snarks.

"Picasso was a painter." You retort, effectively silencing Minho of any moody response.

"No, Fry." Minho grunts. "The sun will set within the hour, there's no way we make it by sundown."

"So what do we do?" Aris asks.

"We'll go as far as we can until the sun sets, then we'll make do with what we have and sleep on the ground." Thomas advises.

Silence falls over the group as Minho starts to pick up the pace. Almost immediately you miss the distraction of conversation. It brought your thoughts away from your burned skin and your jelly muscles. For a moment you forgot about the moment in the stairs. Why? Why must that memory posses your mind. Is it to keep you sane as you run through the endless desert? Or is it to torture you with what could've been?

You glance up at Newt's face, only to have his muscles grab your attention. You watch, memorized as they begin to tremble from exhaustion from holding up the sheet for hours.

"I'll take it from here." You offer, smiling as you reach up to support the cloth.

Newt relaxes his arms gratefully, shaking them out wearily by his sides.

 Once the sun sets across the horizon, you and the boys stop running and get to work on setting up camp. And by camp, it actually means a feeble circle of rolled up bedsheets to be used as pillows. Like before there aren't enough for everybody, forcing you to once again share with Newt.

Of course being the gentlemen he is, he offered to sleep on the ground and let you have the sheet to yourself, although you insisted he shares with you.

Now you sit next to him and the other boys, watching as Aris makes a sad attempt at starting a fire.

"Hey Fry, were you planning on passing out the food any time soon?" You ask as your stomach starts to growl.

"Oh, no I wasn't, I was just going to let you all starve." Fry retorts before digging through the make-shift bags of food.

"That sure is what it seemed like." Minho grumbles, clutching his hands to his stomach.

To your surprise, Fry ignores his comment and starts handing out the small rations of food. Although you chuckle as Fry gets to Minho, watching as Fry hands him a significantly smaller portion than everyone else.

"Oh, so that's how you want to play this game?" Minho snarks, a single eyebrow raised.

"I'm doing you a favor," Fry says with a teasing grin, "You could stand to lose some weight."

Your jaw drops before you start to laugh uncontrollably. Minho jumps to his feet, snatching a bag of food and playfully running away with it as if he were about to eat the whole thing himself. He then drops the bag, running back to the circle, only to shove Fry's head into his sweaty armpit.

You're not sure if you've ever laughed this hard.

Fry struggles against Minho's grip, playfully slapping his arms until Minho finally lets go. Fry then takes a deep breath of fresh air.

"You could stand to take a shower too." Fry adds, scrunching his nose in disgust.

"You don't smell much better yourself, clunkhead." Minho retorts sitting back down.

"I smelled better before you shoved me into your armpit." Fry argues, handing Minho the right amount of food.

You shake your head, still laughing. "Boys."

Newt nudges you jokingly, "What? Like you smell much better?"

Your eyes widen in shock as you start to blush, suddenly very aware of how you smell while Newt is visibly shaking from laughing so hard.

At that moment Aris lights the fire and Newt's face lights up. His smile stretching wide as his eyes glow laughter in the light of the fire. Your breath catches inside your throat. You wish you has a camera, for the sole purpose of capturing this moment.

So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trial for a little while. 1 Peter 1:6