Light ➳ TST, Thomas [2] ✓

Chapter {1}

It was yet cold when the slow shaking of whatever we were in pushed my nightmares away.

The hard surface that floated at the far end of my memories, as I remembered it being, wasn't that hard anymore, before I noticed he held me in his arms. Thomas was soundly asleep, mumbling incoherent things while his troubled crossed features softened and scrunched up a few times.

The low ceiling was nothing in similarity to the one of my room in the Glade, gray and empty aside yellow stripes and red warnings. I drew a conclusion it was an aircraft of sorts, presumably a helicopter whose motoric rhythm of elipse could be heard from the outside.

Sprawled around the helicopter sitting or lying next to each other were my friends. The realization of who I truly was, however poisoning and nagging my guts, couldn't be as affecting as it was for them. A woman who has made the Maze, sent innocent children in there, forced us to fight and die while begin on the other side of it was my mother. The woman who killed Chuck, Chris, Alby and Jamie, the woman who killed many more than just them was the one to who I should be grateful that I was living now. Just a bare thought of her, horrors she has done to us were enough to push me onto the verge of tears as they slowly started slipping out of my eyes. Yet again, I could barely see what was around me, even through the previous sight has printed the image in my mind.

"Hey, kid, you alright?" My head snapped at the front, finding a scruffy man whose soft eyes made me feel quite better than before.

"I-I don't..." Pushing the sleeve of my shirt toward my face, it soaked up all the tears while still leaving a cold feeling underneath my eyes. "Where are we?" I murmured finally.

The man looked outside, I following his actions as I gazed at the starless night sky through the circular window and dark blue ground above which we currently were and of whose bottom I couldn't measure the depth of.

Meeting back his slightly more worried look, it took him some time to start speaking again. "It's a long story, but you'll be safe soon. I promise you that."

I gazed at him for a few more moments, finally after he had turned to check on the pilot I managed to look back at Thomas. He looked more peaceful, even partly happy as his lips have barely twitched into a smile he surely wasn't aware of.

Wrapping my arm around his neck, I leaned my head on his and stared as endless miles of pure dark shifted away.

•

Who knew how long have I stayed like that, how long did it take for us to reach whatever place we were supposed to reach? Hours, or maybe even just a half and hour later the helicopter started to shake again, this time I have felt the impact it made after it has landed, just as a bare, quick shaking before it stilled again. My mind was empty all along, rather that than to succumb to a constant though of betrayal.

Breathing in a shaky breath I felt like time went slower than usual, as we sat suspecting nothing and most probably thinking nothing. The surviving Gladers have woken up by now, at least six people surrounding me that I only managed to see with the corners of my eyes as I kept my head low.

Sounds of outside world were non-existent, only one the deafening motor of the vehicle and absent buzz of something hitting the glassy surface. Well, all until someone forced the door open right where I sat and a hand pulled me out.

My feet reached what seemed like sand, soft and slippery against my shoes as it squeaked with every move I made. Cold embraced me, flowing through the thin shirt I had on and completing a perfect image of a world I didn't known that well with the darkness of night sky around. In wake of still loud sounds of helicopter, I could hear faint screeching in an inhuman way and also shouts of men whose mouths were tightly covered with scarves, bodies clad in heavy clothing and shotguns slinging over their shoulders.