The Deadliest Generation: The Desert of Death

Chapter Two: Hanging, Swinging, Darkness.

Trigger Warning: descriptions of gore, corpses, Cranks (zombies), slight mentions of PTSD breakdowns, panic attacks, internalized homophobia, homophobic thoughts, self hate, stress induced self harm, swearing.

(Sorry guys, all these are minor and not too harmful to read, but I'm just giving you guys a warning.)

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A hand slammed onto Thomas's shoulder from behind, pulling him back around, but it made Thomas start badly. 

Thankfully it was only Minho, and he was staring into nothing, the maniac in the window reflected in his somber eyes. 

"They're everywhere, Thomas. We have no clue where they came from." His voice had a gloom in it that had perfectly matched how Thomas was feeling. It seemed as if everything they'd hoped for last night had dissolved to absolutely nothing. "And there's no sign of the shanks who rescued us," he added.

Thomas had lived in a prison of fear and terror for the past few weeks, but this felt like too much. To feel a false sense of safety only for it to be cruelly snatched away again the next second. He felt himself begin to shake, his throat going dry and like usual in these situations, his breathing quickened and his fingernails dug marks into the skin on his hand. He pushed away his usual thoughts of panic and fear. He swallowed deeply and glanced at the floor. 

He looked back up at Minho, who thankfully hadn't noticed his minor breakdown, and pushed away the childish urge to hide from it all by diving back into bed and pulling the blankets back over his head.

"Have any of them got in yet?" He asked raspily, a strange calm washing over him, and his hands fell from their curled, clawing position. "Do all the windows have these bars?"

Minho nodded towards one of the many lining the walls of the room, "Yeah. It was way too dark to notice them last night, especially with the curtains, but I'm sure glad for them."

Thomas looked at the Gladers around them, some running from window to window to get a good look at the outside, other's huddling in small groups, and a few sitting between the gaps between the rows of the beds, hands over their ears, rocking themselves slowly. But none of them was... "Where's Newt?"

"Right here."

Thomas looked to his left to see the older boy, not truly realising how much he'd missed him until now, and suppressed the urge to hug him. "D'you know what's going on?"

"You think I have a bloody clue?" Newt replied a little exasperatedly. "Bunch of crazies want to eat us for breakfast, by the looks of things. We need to find another room, have a Gathering. All this noise is driving me shucking insane, it feel like a nail is being driven into my bugging skull."

Newt seemed to be using more and more slang, that he used briefly before in the Maze, as his anxiety spiked higher due to the situation at hand. 

Thomas just nodded absently in reply, wishing that he knew exactly how to comfort everyone's worrying.

He hoped that someone else would take care of the plan, he was way to exhausted to do so. He wished that he could make contact with Teresa, but he knew that he couldn't. He wished that her warning was a dream, a hallucination, coming from a drug dragged up from his draining slumber. And that vision of his mum...

As Thomas's two friends moved away, calling to the Gladers to gather them all together, he realised that he couldn't see River or Jack anywhere. His brow furrowed as he searched for them visually, then saw Newt dart to the small, slightly ajar door where the bathrooms were.

He heard low talking from behind the door as the Gladers voices in the room slowly quietened.

Thomas felt relief flood him ad he took a tremulous glance back to the window, and saw the shredded, mangled mad man. He turned away immediately, wishing that he hadn't reminded his brain and eyes of the blood stained skin and teeth, the torn, decaying flesh, the insanity induced eyes, and the hysterical screaming.