Silver Lining (Newtmas)

32 - Electrotonic

elec-tro-ton-ic 
\i-lek-trə-'tä-nik\
Adjective

: of, relating to, or being the spread of electrical activity through living tissue or cells in the absence of repeated action potentials

~

Thomas forced himself to focus when the Rat Man started talking.

First something about them being immunes; but the words swam in and out of his brain. He knew what was happening. He knew it.

He looked over to Newt, where he was looking, brows furrowed, at the Rat Man. There was a touch of fierce determination in his eyes; it just made Thomas feel worse.

"And those who are not immune..." the man began to say, and Thomas could feel Newt's hand clutched tightly around his. A sickly feeling spread across his abdomen. He felt like he was watching a time bomb; he knew it was going to happen, yet there was nothing he could do to prevent it. He knew too well what the Rat Man will say; what will happen.

(A/N: You knew none so well, none so well as you, of my daughter's flight. Sorry I got a little carried away I mean I didn't spend hours memorising Shakespeare for school for nothing)

The Rat Man rattled off names like it was nothing, like it didn't set the path for their entire futures. Thomas heard them, recognised a few, but they didn't stick. He heard screams, shrieks, and cries of dismay. He closed his eyes, fingers entwined with Newt's, praying that the dream he had was just that. A dream.

But of course, when had he been lucky?

~

When Newt heard his name, he felt the floor fall out from underneath him.

Besides feeling like being punched in the chest, there was no pain, no shock, whatever.

He just felt empty. Like a shell. 

Like... oh. There goes his life.

Big deal.

He wasn't sure what he was supposed to feel. Scared? Sad? Maybe. But he felt immune to it now, after everything he'd been through.

Immune, hah. The irony.

People crowded around him. Patted him on the back, told him they loved him. Told him it didn't matter, that he'd get through it. That he was strong, and he'd survive.

He felt Thomas's arms wrap around him in a soul binding embrace, but that only left him feeling more fragile, more brittle. Thomas told him he loved him, that he believed in him, and he was so sincere that for a second, Newt believed him.

But then the moment was over, and he could only see his bleak future, feel pieces of himself already falling away. He felt so... So useless. All the others - Thomas, Minho... They were important. Used, but important. To whatever WICKED wanted them for. The cure they so desperately desired. But there was no cure, he was sure of that. There wasn't a cure before; there wouldn't be one now.

And there he was, feeling important for once. Feeling needed, just to be thrown away like a used tissue. They didn't need him; nobody did. Meeting Thomas was the single best thing he could remember, and even that was going to be taken away from him.

Of course it was, he was just a sick Flare-induced crank, like everybody else. He thought about the cranks he'd seen, crawling after them with what little sanity they could offer. WICKED has never intended anything for him - he was just a dummy, a control, put in place with the rest.

The Rat Man began to speak once more, about them operating together to find a cure. A cure, Newt almost wanted to laugh; a cure didn't exist. There was nothing to save him from this, this cruel joke, and he wanted to puke at the way the faces around him lit up. WICKED had their minds so set on what they thought was right, they couldn't see past the wrongs.