Newt: A Broken Boy ↠ The Maze Runner

15

The roof of the shack came down with a crash, bringing up a decade's worth of dust from the floor. Minho was in fact yelling at me to cover my head, which I did.

After about thirty seconds, the dust had settled and I could see Minho again. His normally dark hair was a dirty beige colour, covered in the fallen dirt. I could barely imagine what I looked like.

"Let's go," I said. "We should keep moving, especially now that we can't stay here, in this bloody ruin of a shack."

Minho nodded, and stood up. "I'm thinking of moving up north, away from the WICKED compound. As far as I know, there aren't as many crank cities in the area for a few more days walk, but keep watch just in case."

I looked at the ground, hoping that the guilt I was feeling didn't show on my face. Any time that Minho mentioned cranks I would feel the same; I still hadn't told him that I wasn't immune.

I did realise that we'd been friends for five years, and that I probably should have told him about it, but growing up in an underground sewage system did bad things to your trust of the world. I did trust Minho, I just didn't trust that everything would go well once I told him.

"Newt!" Minho nudged me in the shoulder, pulling me out of my thoughts. "Have you been listening to anything I just said?"

I shook my head, giving him a small, apologetic smile. "Sorry, mate, I kinda zoned out for a minute there."

Minho sighed, then said, "Well, I was saying that if we do come across crank cities, then just put all your training in use. They worked us so hard that I swear, even if I lost my memory, I wouldn't forget."

I cracked a smile at his joke, although I knew that he was being semi serious. The WICKED instructors hadn't been very soft on us, and we'd been going through hardcore training sessions six times a week since the age of seven.

We walked for a few hours straight, only stopping once to have a quick meal of cereal right from the packet. We were running out of food supplies a lot quicker than we thought we would, but I brushed the thought away. If there was anything that was going to make this journey harder, it was worry. I looked up at the sky, wondering how it had gotten so dark in such a short time. There were plenty of grey clouds coming from my east, indicating a storm would be coming soon.

"Minho," I said, still walking, "why did you agree to come with me?" It was another thing that I wanted to get out of the way, something else that had been bothering me. As far as I knew, Minho had no grudge against WICKED, especially since I found out about his mother.

He kicked a stone with his shoe, and frowned, for a few seconds before answering.

"I'm not really sure, to be honest," he said. "Ever since that moment, five years ago, when you told me about how you wanted to leave, I was never quite sure whether or not you were being serious. And when you didn't bring it up, even after three years had gone by, I was coming to the conclusion that you had just said it in the shock of the moment, seeing the man that killed the woman who raised you and all."

Minho fell silent and continued to walk. He hadn't really answered my question, but I didn't press him. To my surprise, he went on.

"I guess that there had always been a small part of me that wanted to leave as well. But maybe that small part only became dominant when they told us that the Trials were starting so soon. I had to set them back, Newt, I had to. I know that not all of them want the Trials to be so dangerous, I'm sure of it." By the last sentence, Minho's voice had lowered to little more that a whisper, as if he was trying to convince himself more than me.

I opened my mouth to reply, but shut it quickly when I smelt something smoky coming up my nose.

"Do you smell that?" I asked slowly, directing the question at Minho.

He nodded, realisation dawning upon his face. "Fire," he announced.

I looked upwards tentatively. It seemed that what I had originally thought as storm clouds, were in fact, clouds of smoke, very large clouds of smoke. Suddenly, as if we were of the same mind, Minho and I ran, in unison, towards the direction it was coming from.

As the fire came into view, I noticed that there wasn't much that was burning. Instead, there was simply one house, standing in a row of others, that was on fire, giving off gallons and gallons of black smoke. I approached it carefully, preparing myself for a wall of heat. I felt nothing, so I got closer and closer until I could make out muffled sounds coming from inside. I still felt no heat coming from the fire.

Right behind me, Minho whispered, "I think there might be someone in there." My eyes widened.

"Stay here," I said, and before he had a chance to object, I was at the house.

My first surprise was that the fire still seemed to give off no heat, although I was touching it with my bare hands. I decided to go with it, and search for the person inside. I pushed my shoulder against the door, breaking it easily. The shuffling had turned into yelling, and I followed it through to the back.

Inside what seemed to be a burnt and blackened version of a kitchen, was a boy. He looked a few years younger than me, about eight or nine, and had short, curly brown hair. He was backing into a corner, gazing up at me with a look of terror in his eyes.

"Don't worry," I said, using a voice that one might've used to calm a frightened puppy. "I'm not going to hurt you. Tell me your name."

The boy glanced around, as if searching for something to attack me with, but eventually, his eyes landed on mine.

"Chuck," he said, his voice quivering. "My name's Chuck."

~

A/N: Hey guys, sorry that this is a couple of days late. I hope you enjoyed it, anyway. Please tell me of you liked it, I find that having others opinion really does improve people's writing, mine included. Anywho, if you could vote and whatnot that's awesome. Bye!!