• Trial Two: The Scorch •
||𝐃𝐀𝐌𝐀𝐆𝐄𝐃|| Blake is cracking like the stone walls she had escaped from. Each lie, betrayal, challenge, and death pushes her into a deeper hole of emptiness. Blake and the Gladers thought they escaped from the madnes...
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9. The room grew with a ghostly silence instead of any racing panic like Blake would have expected. Rat Man quickly slammed the folder shut. He then stood, stepped to the side of the desk. Finally, he folded his hands in front of him and returned his attention to the Gladers.
"It's simple, really," he said, his tone simple. "There are no rules. There are no guidelines. You have few supplies, and there's nothing to help you along the way. Go through the Flat Trans at the time indicated. Find open air. Go one hundred miles, directly north, to the haven. Make it or die."
A lot of things these days were making Blake more frustrated, angrier. To be honest, the only emotion she felt since escaping the Maze was guilt, sadness, and anger. But the tone he used, the Rat Man himself, all burned a hole in her chest of hazy steamy rage. It also seemed to start up the raging storm of questions. "What's a Flat Trans?"
"How'd we catch the Flare?"
"How long till we see symptoms?"
"What's at the end of the hundred miles?"
"What happened to the dead bodies?"
Question after question, a chorus of them. Blake just watched, eyes cold and hard. She didn't feel like speaking, wasting her breath. She knew that whatever was to come from her mouth was just going to be a rush of all kinds of troubling words, mostly consisting of insults and some swear words. Why can't people see there is no point, she thought.
Rat Man waited looking amused as he ignored them, those ugly dark eyes darting back and forth between the Gladers as they spoke. His gaze stopped upon her for a silent second before moving on to the next person. But she hoped for those few seconds, he felt the spit of fire boiling inside her. Hoped that he knew that she hated him and his idea of deposing them like they were near trash.
"You shanks shut up!" Minho finally shouted. The questions stopped instantly. "This shuck-face ain't answering, so quit wastin' your time."
Rat Man nodded once toward Minho as if thanking him. Perhaps acknowledging his common sense that was lacking around them. "One hundred miles. North. Hope you make it. Remember―you all have the Flare now. We gave it to you to provide any incentive you may be lacking. And reaching the haven means receiving a cure." He turned away and moved toward the wall behind him. He stopped and faced them again.
"Ah, one last thing," he said. "Don't think you'll avoid the Scorch Trials if you decide not to enter the Flat Trans between six and six-oh-five tomorrow morning. Those who stay behind will be executed immediately in a most ... unpleasant manner. Better off taking your chances in the outside world. Good luck to all of you."
With that, he turned away and started walking toward the wall. The invisible wall separating them started to fog up, like the mirrors after you took a shower. Then whitening to an opaque blur in a matter of seconds. And then the whole thing disappeared, once again revealing the other side of the common area.
