Through The WICKED Scorch | A Maze Runner Story (English Version)

5. A nocturnal excursion

When I was sure that no one else was awake and Thomas had just lain down after washing his face, I asked into the darkness, "Thomas?"
At first there was no answer, but after several seconds a "Hmm?" came back.
"Who do you think these people are?"
"Who do you think?"
"I don't know. I have a very strange feeling about this. This Janson guy worries me, every time I see him. It's like..."
"...I knew him," he finished my sentence with me. I lifted my head and looked over at him, but could only see the back of his head.
"How...?"
"I remembered, remember?"
How could I have forgotten already, it had only been two days after all, even if it felt like it had happened in another life.
"Well, I didn't tell you everything when Teresa and I were in the pit."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I remember you. You and Newt, you worked with us. Only briefly, but I remember you spending something like a month with us. We were friends, good friends even, and you and Teresa, you were friends too. I remember that you were her only friend. And I remember we did something, you and I, but I don't remember what it was. It's like it's on the tip of my tongue, but I just can't grasp it. Like a word that just won't come to me."
"I don't remember either... But I remembered it, too. At least a little bit. And I feel like there's something here that I should remember, too. Something about those people and Janson."
We were silent for a moment, then Thomas said, "We should keep our eyes open. About Teresa, too. I'm really worried that..."
But that was as far as he got. Suddenly we heard a dull thump and then the squeak of metal. It was as if it was coming from under his bed. At the same time we jumped up in confusion and I got up to kneel in front of his bed while he leaned upside down over the edge of it.
"Psst. Hey. Down here!" someone made before I was even on my knees.
I peeked under the bed and recognised the boy from the dining hall who had been sitting there alone and hooded. The one who had supposedly been here the longest.
What is he doing here? What does he want from us?
"Oh my god," Thomas said, but he interrupted him by putting a finger to his lips and going, "Shhh! "Come on. Follow me."
With those words, he scrambled back.
"What?" Thomas asked.
"Come on, after him. Whatever he wants, I want to know."
I crawled under the bed and followed the boy into the vent. Thomas was right behind me, I could hear.
As we crawled through the shafts, a memory came up in me, blurry at first, then clearer and clearer. I was crawling through a ventilation shaft, looking for Newt, who was with his sister.
Wait a minute. Sister?
"Hurry, this way! Come on!" the boy murmured, snapping me out of my thoughts.
I quickened my pace and followed him around several corners, Thomas close behind me.
Just as I was wondering if we wouldn't be heard crawling along like this, I almost crashed into the back of the guy in front of me because he had stopped, apparently to get his bearings. He seemed to know where we were again and was now turning right.
"Hey, wait a second. What the hell are we doing?" Thomas hissed behind me.
The boy stopped and turned to face us.
"Come on! We're gonna miss it!" he replied impatiently, making a hand gesture for us to follow him again.
"What the hell are we doing?" Thomas whispered to me.
"Slim it, Tommy. He seems to want to show us something. Let's take a look."
Tommy? Where did I get that nickname from now? Something told me I had called him that before.
As I scrambled around the next corner, I realised that the ventilation shaft here was wider and higher. The boy was crouching next to an opening that apparently led into the passage below. I slid next to him and peered through as well.
"What are we doing here?" Thomas asked quietly, increasingly impatient.
But again, the boy next to me just put his finger to his mouth and went, "Shh! Come here!"
Thomas came over to us and as he squatted down next to me the other murmured, "Watch."
We sat there staring into the corridor below us. I was beginning to think we had come here for nothing when suddenly I heard footsteps coming towards us. I recognised the doctor who had examined Teresa and who I thought was called Dr Crawford - at least that was what I had picked up.
She took a key card out of her gown and was looking around when another noise came up - rolling. I recognised two men dressed in green surgical gowns pushing what looked like a hospital bed with some kind of case on which the outline of a human body and various values were depicted.
I looked at Thomas in horror, who was staring down through the opening as if spellbound. Then he changed position to see better and I slid around as well. The woman opened a door with her key card and the men pushed the bed - or what it was - through. Two more people, this time there was also a woman, pushed a second bed through, then the door closed behind them and the corridor was empty again.
We were silent for a moment and I felt the boy eyeing us intently, but I couldn't take my eyes off the corridor. Thomas was the first of us to regain his composure and began to speak.
"What the hell was that?"
"They bring in new ones every night, like clockwork."
"You know what they do with them?" Thomas asked, and now I looked up too.
"I don't know. This is as far as I've ever gotten. The vents don't even go into that section. But once they go through that door, they don't come back out."
A shiver ran down my spine and I looked back and forth between the two boys in horror.
"I don't think anybody ever really leaves this place."
Thomas and I exchanged scowls and I felt myself start to shake. Adrenaline was pumping through my veins and I was struggling to breathe calmly.
"Shit..." I whispered and looked back down the corridor.
"Come on. We've gotta go before somebody notices we're gone." He was about to turn and make his way back when Thomas stopped him.
"Why did you show us this?"
He hesitated before answering, as if thinking over his answer first.
"Because maybe the others will listen to you. There's something weird going on here - and I know you think so too."
With those words, he turned back around and scrambled to the entrance of the shaft from which we had come.
"Hey, wait!" Again Thomas stopped him. "What's your name?"
Only now did it occur to me that I didn't even know his name.
"Aris."
With these words he finally disappeared into the ventilation shaft.
Again it was pounding in my head.
Aris. I know that name.
But as so often, I couldn't think of whether I knew him or not. It probably didn't matter, after all, we had completely different problems.
"What are we going to do now?" I asked quietly.
Thomas shrugged his shoulders. "Wait and see. We should keep our eyes open."
"But don't you want to know what's behind that door? They're doing something to people there and I didn't think they looked like they were here by choice. Or do you want to be taken away in a box like that?"
He looked at me thoughtfully but said nothing.
"Come on, Tommy, we have to do something."
Again I had called him Tommy as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
"I'll think of something. In the meantime, we shouldn't tell anyone about this. We shouldn't worry the others unnecessarily."
I didn't think anything about this was unnecessary, but nodded in agreement. We made our way through the ventilation shafts and I found it surprisingly easy to find my way back, as if this wasn't the first time I'd done this here. But the memory just wouldn't come and so I resigned myself to the fact that I had at least remembered something that evening, when I snuggled up next to Newt after all and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.