Edge of Insanity

Chapter Sixteen

The sun was hot. So, so hot. I felt it burning my face, my shoulders, my chest. Someone was carrying me. I was looking over their shoulder into a vast wasteland. It looked like a sea except the water was red and scorching from the relentless sun.

"Shh, Soyna." A woman moved into my vision, pushing a cloth over my exposed skin. She was pretty with dark flowing hair that moved around her like a waterfall. High cheek bones extenuated her caramel colored eyes. A scratch marred her right cheek and dirt speckled the rest of her tanned skin.

She's my mother.

The woman- my mother- tugged the cloth down lower, covering my view. A comforting hand rubbed over my back then.

"Almost there." A man's voice. Warm and kind and above all else, gentle.

A few more minutes must have passed before we stopped moving. I was set down on the ground. The cloth tugged back from my eyes. Before us stood an enormous building, reaching all the way to the cloudless sky. It blotted out the relentless sun, giving us a rest from the stifling heat. My mother and the man knelt before me. I knew he was my father from the way he took my mother's hand in his own.

He had dark eyes, the color of rich, upturned soil. His salt and pepper was cut short and scruff edged its way down the lower half of his face. "Soyna, I know you don't understand what is happening but please remember that no matter what- we love you." His hand was huge atop my tiny shoulder. I felt my younger self nod.

My mother had tears in her eyes as she pulled me close. I could smell the faint scent of flowers clinging to her, as if it was desperate to stay alive in this barren world. She enveloped me in a tight hug and then pulled back, salt staining her cheeks. "Be strong. Be brave." She pressed a small object into my hand. My tiny fingers curled around it.

"It's time," my father said as he stood up. He pounded roughly on the side of the large building. A few short seconds later the wall parted into a doorway. Two figure emerged, covered from head to toe in white hazard suits. My father nodded solemnly at the people. My mother turned to me. "You must go with them, Sonya. You will be safe."

"No!" I cried. "I want to stay with you." My younger self, wrapped short arms around her leg.

"Sonya, you must go." My father's voice was forceful. A pair of arms encircled my waist, detaching my from my mother's leg.

"We love you!" I heard her cry over my own sobbing as the white-suited people pulled me into the building.

"No!" I cried one last time as the doors closed, sealing me off from them. I pounded on the shoulders of the person carrying me. I felt a prick in my arm. Blackness trickled into the edge of my vision. The last thing I saw before my eyes slipped shut were huge emblazoned letters on the wall of the building.

WCKED.

When I opened my eyes I was staring at a computer screen. Six blank spaces flashed repeatedly before me.

"What are the words?"

I jumped. A woman was standing next to me. Her blonde hair was cut sharply at her chin. Her nose was upturned and she peered down at me with eyes much to small for her face.

She bore a striking resemblance to a crow.

"Well?" Her voice was nasally and high pitched. "What are the words?"

"I have no-" And then my fingers started typing, almost as if on their own accord.

Float.

Catch.

Bleed.

Death.

Stiff.

Push.

I stared at the computer screen, the blank spaces now full.

"Very good." The woman clapped a thin, bony hand on my shoulder. I resisted the urge to shudder. "This code is your life line. In the end this is what will save you." She straightened. "Not that it will matter, of course. You won't remember any of this."

"What?" My voice sounded strange to my own ears. Younger. And then I realized, I was younger.
"Take her back. She's ready."

"Ready for what?"

The woman glanced down at me, something that faintly resembled a smile gracing her face. "For the Maze Trails."

I was sucked back into that swirling vortex of color. I swam through time and space, memories surfacing in my brain, searing themselves in my mind. Over and over I was flung through them, each more disturbing than the last.

I felt like an ant frantically trying to escape the impending doom of being crush by a boot. How could they have made me forget so much?

I saw the world. I saw the burning and the pain and the death and the destruction. I saw my parents again. I saw dead people lying in the streets. I saw sick people and people with hideous sores on their faces. I saw WCKED and their white suits. I saw guns and fire and explosions.

And then I saw the Maze. I saw the Glade and the Gladers through computer screens. Doctors and scientists and nurses taking notes, recording every little detail. Everything we did. Everything we said. Everything we ate.

I saw kids like us- dozens of them. Ready. Waiting to be sent up in the Box and into the Glade.

The Maze Trails. Phase one. WCKED. The Flare. Cranks.

So many unfamiliar words swirled around in my head. A silent scream rose up in my throat but when I opened my mouth no noise came out. I thought it would never end. The colors, the flashing, the noises- it stretched on and on and on. I was fraying apart slowly, I could feel it. My fingers felt numb, my toes and legs and arms and-

Then it stopped.

Everything just stopped and I waited for another barrage of memories to come. But nothing did. It was an empty black void. Not a single thing stirred.

And then I opened my eyes for the last time.