Him || The Scorch Trials

Twelve

As they neared the city in a rush of survival the dust grew thicker and Mara's vision grew hazy. Even though they were closer than they had been to the city before, it was getting harder and harder to see it. The dust made it hard to breathe, lining her throat with soot and dryness. Now the heat didn't seem like such a problem; it had been blown away by the sky's breath, but they had other problems to deal with.

Every once in a while the wind propelled a large object to zoom past the group of Gladers. Part of a roof almost whisked Mara off her feet and a large branch scraped across the side of her face, leaving a long gash from the corner of her eye to the tip of her nose. She could feel the blood oozing down the side of her face and her head ached with pain, but still, she ran. Nothing was going to stop her from running.

But then the lightning struck, with its violent white beams splashing onto the dust ridden surface below their feet like a knife jabbing through the flesh of its victim.

By the time it had throttled down onto the dust beneath their feet, the Gladers had halved the distance to the closest building- maybe even more than that. They were close, but they had to run faster.

As they ran the ground debris flew past them, erupting from the beams of lightening when they contacted. Along with the lightening came the deafening crunch of electricity, numbing Mara's ears and producing a light humming in her ear drums which got louder and louder with each step she took.

Her senses were failing her, and all she could do was follow the blurry figures in front of her, hoping for her life that they knew where they were going. The deadness in her ears killed off all surrounding sounds until the only presence of lightening she knew of was what she could see.

Some people stumbled out of her line of vision, but Mara did whatever she could to try and save them. They had lost so many Gladers in such a short time period, and she wasn't prepared to loose anymore. Along with those she hardly knew, she picked Newt up off the ground when he tripped and pulled him to his feet in a hazy rush of madness. Newt wasn't going to get left behind, Mara was not going to leave him- or any of the other Gladers- to the pulsing beams of death.

The clouds thickened above them, gathering together to send heavier and more perilous bolts whipping onto the ground. As the group furthered through the storm Mara's vision grew worse and worse until she could barely see anyone around her.

Still, the storm wasn't average. On a strange and peculiar note, Mara noticed that there was no rain. What kind of storm doesn't have rain?

All she could think about was what would happen if one of those lightning bolts struck itself onto one of the Gladers, and that scared her to death. But then what she thought became reality, and she could physically feel her heart drop deep into the rest of her body.

An intense bold of pure electricity surged through the air and shattered in direct connected with flesh and blood.

Mara wanted to scream, she wanted to help the boy in some way, but she knew that she couldn't. Every breath she took through her nose was hard enough to take, opening her mouth would mean letting the dust-riddled air into her lungs, and it wouldn't take long for it to line her throat and choke her.

She was far enough away not to be impacted by the blow, but she saw Thomas fly through the air and hit the ground back first just in front of her. For a moment she thought it was him that had been hit by the bolt, but then he picked himself up and was running beside her again, and she saw the real damage.

One of the Gladers- Mara thought his name was Jack- was lying inside a small crater, squirming and clutching his knee, but only his knee. There was nothing below that, just the dirt surrounding him. The bolt had demolished his knee completely, a giant gash oozing with black blood where the rest of his leg should have been, pooling out onto the dust. Everything he had been wearing was scorched, leaving him completely naked, but his skin colour was hardly recognisable. He had no hair whatsoever, and it looked like his eyeballs had completely disintegrated.

But he was still alive.

Mara dropped to the floor and turned away from the boy, throwing the little food she had eaten onto the ground. It was hard to look anywhere and avoid seeing his dying body, but she was drawn to look at him.

Someone ran up to her and pulled her to her feet with one hand, dragging her away from the boy's burnt body. Mara looked up to the person heaving her towards the city; Minho. He was holding on to Thomas with his other hand, who looked just as sick as Mara felt.

It took a few seconds for Mara to gather her bearings and realise that Minho was trying to tell her something. She scrunched up her face, and watched the boy's lips as he repeated what he had said. We have to go. Nothing we can do.

She knew he was right, but that didn't stop the image of his body running through her head. His tangled body, his slit flesh and charred... everything. That's all she saw.

The three of them clung to each other for a minute or two, trying not to lose each other. Mara was the first to break away, not wanting to drag them into anything if she got caught in the lightening. The building was practically above them now, casting them in a dark shadow.

Mara was sandwiched between Minho, who ran ahead, and Thomas, who ran behind her. Her muscles ached and her ears rang with a vicious pain that wouldn't disappear, but she had to get through it. She had to get to the building.

By this point, everyone as running all over the place, all organisation and hope of staying together. It as each Glader for himself now.

Her eyes were glued to Minho, following him and hoping that they could just get inside and away from the terror that was the storm. It felt selfish, but she just wanted to keep herself away from the bolts. She didn't want to feel that gut-wrenching, inhumane sting of being burned alive, and of course she didn't want the others to feel that either, but she wanted to live past the storm. She had to survive.

A sweltering bolt of light zigzagged onto the ground in front of her, flinging Mara through the air and she landed on her stomach on the floor. The wound in her stomach flared up, along with a new found numbness in her left shoulder, almost as if it had popped out of place.

Then, a horrifying realisation settled into her mind when she realised where the bolt had hit. Minho had been just in front of her. He had taken the blow.

She snapped her head upwards to her friend, climbing to her feet and screaming at the top of her lungs, even though she knew that he wouldn't hear her. Almost as quickly as she stood up she stopped, her body frozen in place.

Masses of flames clambered towards the sky, embracing the dust and debris to help enhance itself. It lashed and battered the wind uncontrollably, nothing could stop its frantic escalation as it moved like a wild dancer, curling and pirouetting through mid-air. But then the flames fell to the ground, and Mara knew that someone was amidst the licking fire.

Minho.