Light ➳ TST, Thomas [2] ✓

Chapter {6}

"What are we actually looking for?" Nico inquired absently, his gaze flickering over carelessly strewn items in the corner we stood in. Broken water bottles, cut in half, a few dusty plates with some moldy piece of food that lost its stench due to probably being there for far too long. Cloth, rips like claw marks in its middle.

Yet nothing of a use for us.

"I don't know. Anything useful." I rummaged through a portable fridge, throwing aside empty plastic bags and bean cans that I could've very well cut myself on.

"Does this count?" A ripped shirt hung over his finger, disgustingly as he held it inches away from himself.

I felt a smile twitch my lips upward, laughter bubbling in me as Nico and I shared a knowing glance. Then, we both bursted out laughing. I sat down, holding a hand over my mouth, felt my mind partly at ease now that I've broken through a long, sad cloud that hung over me for days. As I opened my eyes again, Nico was still in faze, silently laughing with his hand clutching his stomach.

"Okay, okay...it doesn't count." Nico answered his own question, flicking aside another clothing material that lay as a cover for other items. I couldn't see what they were in the darkness, that was only cut by a muffled light of a table lamp on the other side. "Woah, look at this." Curious, I lifted my eyes up toward surprised sound of Nico's voice, only to see he held a clothing item similar to bomber jacket.

"Well, it doesn't look bad." I stood up, walked towards Nico as my hand grazed the slippery material the jacket was made of and eventually found to slip away from it.

"Try it on. I'll search for some food." He hummed happily, pushing the item in my hands before as happy as ever, bounded toward the darker area of the room we were supposed to search. I gripped it tightly, uneasy feeling creeping in the pit of my stomach as I blinked away the dust that has coated on my lashes; the air was full of it. With every step I took toward the bed packed with clothing of many sizes, I could feel it arise beneath my feet and collect underneath a lamp that shone.

I sat onto my knees next to a bed, messing away a gray, dusty shirt that lay over others. It was too long for me, as I presumed it could reach all the way to my knees and the rips of its material made it even more useless. As it slid of the bed, I noticed some smaller ones were there too, and picked a light blue one, that however dirty wasn't as ripped as others.

Looking down on it, I wondered a strange thing. Who did it belong to? Sure enough, if it was there it must've had on owner. And maybe it once did. Maybe, once when there were people...people just like us that seeked safety, but now disappeared. I couldn't help but to ask myself where they were, did they just leave or did something make them find a better place to lead their lives than an abandoned mall.

A shiver ran down my spine as I thought of it, how truly alone we stood against WICKED and in how big wonder we lived. Far out the world was still unknown to me; what might stand between us and our safety was as unknown as my life itself. Only remembrance I had, only sign a surname that should brace me for the rest of my life, yet nothing that connected me to myself before aside it and a faint, tingling memory of Thomas.

I closed my eyes tightly, shutting out a sight of a long, dusty window that had lost all it's shine and the hard surface in which I saw a reflection of myself. Letting them flutter open again, I took in a breath and stood up. I pulled the shirt WICKED had given me over my head, letting it fall to the ground before slipping on the slightly warmer one, that left a strange tingling, probably because it was made of that sort of material.

"Hey, Ari, I have backpacks! Want one?" Nico's voice rang in my ears, forcing to meet him as he ran toward me with two gray backpacks hanging over his arms. When he stopped, he held one in front of me, a smile from one ear to the other gracing his lips.

"Thanks, Nico." I answered gratefully, taking the already heavy backpack from his hand. Just for a few seconds it weighed my hand down, unprepared that I was for how heavy exactly it was with food and water bottles, two of the basic necessities without which we wouldn't be able to survive out there. 

"That's all we need, right?" I found myself staring into something imaginary, something on that empty wall on my right side and completely forgot Nico's words next to me. Well, all until he lightly shook me to regain my focus on our conversation.

"Uh, I'm sorry. I think it is." In partial darkness nothing was visible to me, apart from a few footsteps masked in the sand by my feet, one over the other that surely were mine and Nico's as shifted away by stale smell in the air dust that covered most carelessly strewn supplies flew in the streak of white Nico's flashlight produced. I wouldn't even notice he had found one, not until he turned it on that made me blink rapidly as it slightly affected the previous state as I have accustomed to the darkness I constantly looked at.

"Great, then we're ready to go!" Nico grabbed my arm, started pulling me toward the center of a slightly bigger room when suddenly something shifted beside me. A humming sound similar to the one I heard before waking up in the Glade, yet much quieter started as a powerful bang, and then motorically shifted into sequence over and over again. I stared it up and down, trying to find what has happened with it. Too late it was, too late that I realised it powered a system throughout the whole mall.

A system of light. And they all shifted on.

Nico and I stared at each other questioningly, our mouths agape and eyes unblinking as orange track of light cast over our heads lit a flame in my eyes that I had to cover if I wanted to get rid of blinding shine. My blinking turned rapid, dark then light repeated in my sight, one after the other as my eyes still saw a circular shape whose green and blue fell into its mass only visible in light.

I let Nico pull me toward the centre, now lit as much clearly I could see the surroundings. Shapes that in the darkness looked like a sofa and a table stood at the side, messy and probably broken, packed with empty glasses and long plastic bags that threatened to fall down.

"What's going on?" Nico asked as soon as we reached our group, huddled together in confusion and lost as they looked around themselves, each corridor in bright light as if sun was shining there. Each corridor full of furniture. "Newt?" Nico's gaze flickered to the blond boy, panic that had replaced his usual sensible expression coated like a cloud behind his eyes as his stare pierced a long corridor in front of us. Newt didn't know how to answer, just kept staring into the darkness as if infuriated by it. 

Then two figures appeared. They seemed small, too dark to be even considered real, like two shadows playing in light as their urgent moving, rather running made them shift from the coverage of light and disappear into the shadows before they have appeared again.

Yet, as my eyes focused onto their running shapes, urgent and fast paced, their voices strained and scared I realized something; they weren't just shadows. They were Thomas and Minho. Running from something.

(A/N):

Muahahahaha, bad, bad things will happen soon. Anyway, I apologise for the sucky, short chapter and lack of detail.

I'm currently trying to read Silmarillion by J.R.R Tokien but I can't with all elvish names...

But, that's another universe.

Q: who do you think of my OCs isn't and is immune? I just wanna hear your guesses.

Hannon le...which means thank you in elvish😂