Night Visions (TMR) (Newtmas)

24

For some reason, after hearing the news, something clicked in Thomas' mind, and he decided that the Maps weren't that important, anyway. It was as if his mind wouldn't accept any more tragedies, to avoid collapsing. While Minho and Newt went to investigate the sabotage, Thomas went to another place. He could only think of doing one thing.

"Teresa?" he asked.

Her face appeared. She rubbed her eyes. "Was anybody killed?" she asked groggily. What kind of person asks that right after waking up? Agh. Nevermind.

"Were you sleeping?" Thomas was relieved to see that she was okay. He felt his body relax, something that it hadn't done ever since they woke to this eternal gray dullness.

"I was," she admitted nonchalantly, "until I heard something that shattered the Homestead into pieces. What happened?"

Thomas shook his head in disbelief. "I can't believe you slept with all those Grievers out here."

"You try coming out of a coma sometime. See how you do." Now answer my question, she thought for him.

Thomas blinked, taken off-guard for a second by the voice. "Cut that junk out. You don't know Gally, but he's a psycho kid who ran away. He showed up, beat the hell out of Newt, jumped on a Griever, and they all took off into the Maze. It was really weird." If it wasn't for the dry blood on his hands, he himself would've found it hard to believe.

"Which is saying a lot."

They remained silent for a while, until Thomas shook his head. He was trying to understand the whole situation, yet he couldn't make anything out. "I just don't get it. Why would the Grievers leave after getting Gally? He said something about them killing us one a night until we were all dead—he said it at least twice."

Teresa put her hands through the bars. "Just one a night? Why?"

"I don't know. He also said it had to do with... trials. Or variables. Something like that." Thomas had a strange urge to reach out and squeeze one of her hands. He stopped himself, though. What he couldn't avoid was worrying.

He felt exactly the same as when he was with Newt. Did this mean that he also liked Teresa? Now that he had finally made up his mind and heart about his feelings, the girl came to turn his world upside down. What if he had fallen for Teresa? What would that mean? How would he handle it? And Newt? What would he tell him? They had shared too much to end up like this. What if he hated him? What if he stopped even looking at him? Didn't this worry mean that he was falling for Newt? But, again, the connection with Teresa, and the urge to take her hand...

"...Tom? Tom!"

He snapped out of his trance when she cried out his name. "Sorry, what?"

"I said that I've been thinking about what you told me I said, about the Maze being a code. The walls move every day, right? And Minho said there was a pattern, also."

"Yeah." Thomas could tell that she was really onto something. He felt his mind preparing, as if some memory was about to break loose.

"Well, I can't remember why I said that to you about the code. But when I was getting out of the comma, and my memories were swirling through my head like crazy—like someone was sucking them out—, I felt like I needed to say that about the code. So it must be really important."

Thomas almost didn't hear her—he was thinking harder than he had in a while. "They always compare each section's Map to the one from the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that, day by day, each Runner just analysing their own Section. What if they're supposed to compare the Maps to other sections..." He fell silent, feeling like he was about to discover something really big.