Betrayed | the maze runner, Newt

chapter 5

It was even worse than they'd expected. It was cruel, inhuman.

They were all dead. 

A difficult silence grew. Zara, Thomas and Aris slowly walked past the corpses, which hung from strange looking equipment with hoses. The smell had changed to a chemical smell instead of a nauseating smell, but it almost made your nose burn by how intense it was. Zara scanned the teenagers. It were at least twenty, all hanging in some kind of armor that went around their waist and arms. It didn't look like they were or had been in pain, but it was as creepy and as bad as it could be.

In the corner of her eye, Zara saw Thomas rush over to the body of a girl with brown hair.

''Teresa.'' He mumbled, but his reaction when he brushed the hair out of the face revealed that it wasn't who he'd thought it was.

Zara and Aris walked over to him. To be that close, Zara noticed a little glass tube next to her, it was getting filled with blue liquid. And when she looked around, she saw all the bodies had such a tube with blue liquid. So, it came from them. The machines were making a Cure with their drained blood.

Suddenly, Aris stepped to the body of the brown-haired girl. His voice was soft and fragile. ''It's Rachel.''

Zara's heart stung. She looked at Aris in compassion. The inner corners of her eyebrows angled up and her lips set in a hard line. She exchanged looks with Thomas, who's eyes had widened in shock.

Aris's eyebrows were pulled close together in sorrow as he stared at the girl, apparently named Rachel. ''They took her the first night.'' He paused. ''I told her it was gonna be okay...''

Zara looked at the boy and felt his sorrow enter her. She felt sick with hate towards her father. And she felt guilty because she was his daughter.

The three teens couldn't believe what they saw. They couldn't process it, neither wanted to. Being in a room with teens who passed away was bad enough. But the fact that it'd happened on purpose... And the way they hung, and their blood got drained. It was only luck that how that happened couldn't be seen. But it was happening, and the sounds said enough.

''I think we saw enough.'' Zara whispered.

Thomas nodded. So did Aris. Thomas turned to Zara. ''Let's g-''

There was a sound. Zara and Thomas turned around to see the doors opening. They immediately ducked behind the nearest equipment to hide. Two people walked in, hearing the footsteps. And Zara recognized her father's voice.

Zara held her breath as the footsteps passed her less than two meters away. She glanced to her side to see Thomas hiding behind some kind of iron pillar. Behind him, Aris was hiding behind a body and its equipment. Zara turned her head slowly to watch her father and one of his workers stand still in front of a hologram of a room with a desk and a woman sitting at the desk. Zara pulled her eyebrows together. That hologram hadn't been there before.

''Good evening, Dr. Paige.'' Janson spoke.

The woman stood up and came to stand in front of Janson. Though it was a hologram, it looked very real. Apart from that everything in the hologram was blue.

Zara watched them from behind her hiding spot. Because of her pounding heat and adrenaline, she could only get a part of what was said. But it was enough to release fresh panic inside her.

''It has to go faster. The people in the mountains who attacked us earlier are maybe planning on another attack and we still don't know where they are, so we have to prevent that they can save the subjects. I don't want you to work harder, only faster. Make sure they don't suffer.'' Dr. Paige spoke.