Fluctuating Beats

Chapter 11: Up the wall

You were woken up by Gally after only a few hours of sleep. Now you were properly awake you could feel how stiff and sore your body was from the days stress and panic yesterday.

After grabbing some bread rolls for breakfast he led you through the quiet base back towards Lawrences' office. Instead of going all the way down, he branched off and went right through another narrow hallway and into a guarded room with a hole in the floor. It was the same one you'd come up from the day before.

"Anything?" Gally questioned the two tired-looking guards.

"Nope," one of them shook their heads, "Train hasn't started up yet if you're quick you'll be alright."

"Train?" You questioned as the other guards lowered a ladder into the dark hole and stepped back.

"Yeah," Gally nodded throwing you a head torch before descending down the ladder, "Remember the one we went through yesterday. It runs in the day time so if we're too slow in the tunnel we'll get crushed."

You knew he wasn't joking but you couldn't help but laugh at his blunt expression. You gave him a couple of seconds head start before going after him.

The further down you went the worse it smelt and you wrinkled your nose in disgust. Your shoes splashed down into the water and you flicked the head torch on. "Sticks like ass down here," you complained following Gally.

"Sorry," Gally spoke sarcastically glancing back at you and heading for the switch hanging on the wall. All the lights flicked on continuing on the whole length of the tunnel. In your urgency to hide from Wicked, you barely noticed any of this. It all felt like a blur.

"I'd be pretty if it didn't stink."

"You could bring Minho here for a date?" Gally suggested.

"I swear I will kick this shit water at you," you threatened, the feeling of playfulness being an unused one as of recently. I felt good to joke around again.

"It's weird hearing you call it shit, I've called it klunk for as long as I can remember."

You continued to walk trying to avoid the deeper patches of water, "We never had other words for things in my side of the Maze. Looking back now, I never know why we did. We never had our own slang, wish we did."

"I'll teach you some from the Glade then. Klunk is shit."

"Yeah, no klunk," you pointed out making him laugh.

"Shank is like an idiot. Shuck is... I don't know actually it's just always been shuck."

You rolled your eyes coming up with lots of words that could be shuck but deciding not to say them.

Before you reached the end of the tunnel you turned right and Gally crawled through a hole and into an even smaller tunnel.

"What's this?" You questioned crawling after him and pausing beside him.

"It's the train tracks we walked up yesterday. The trains have started though so we're going to have to be quick."

"Quick?" You questioned but he didn't need to answer as, at that moment. A train shot past the gap on the other side of Gally sending your messy hair flying in all directions. "Oh."

He nodded grinning at you, "Stick close to me because we don't have long."

You wondered how quickly you'd be able to overtake him as the train passed and he jumped down. You followed him watching the train as it disappeared in the opposite direction.

Gally fixed a vent cover back on the wall and started sprinting in the direction the train had come from. You shot after him matching his pace easily, "How soon until the next one comes?"