Light ➳ TST, Thomas [2] ✓

Chapter {8}

"Hey, Ari, we need to go." A voice woke me up, distant it was in the back of my mind as the remembarance of last night grew more and more clear in my head. Pictures flooded back, horrifying, almost like death as I took everything I had in myself to forget them. My eyes remained shut, almost forced to stay that way, behind them darkness that a little lighter than the night before marred my sight.

I stirred when a hand brushed through my hair, resting lightly on my cheek as its coolness pushed away already stinging, hot air. Darkness in my sight faded as my eyes snapped open, met with a sight of worried Thomas, who underneath all worry looked far worse, far more tired than I've ever seen him.

As his gaze left mine, a searching look in it he inhaled a long breath and forced himself up. I gazed after his retreating figure, face blank of any emotion which sent worry through me again as he checked up on others.

"What's with him?" Nico joined my side, grabbed an empty water bottle that had fallen out of my backpack, and handing it to me, questioningly shifted his gaze between Thomas and I.

"I don't know." I inhaled a shaky breath, creeping into my lungs along with ashy air were dust particles and heat which in the early, or as I presumed it was early made it considerably harder to breath.

"Come on. Let's head out. I'm tired of this place." Nico said solemnly, gently nudged my side as my gaze still focused on Thomas who had now spotted me amongst the gray surroundings, perched above who lay fairly shapeless ledge. I wanted to stop him and ask what was wrong, yet as Newt noticed my hesitation he pulled me along and soon the sight of Thomas standing there faded as we advanced further away from wreckage of mall and horror of Cranks.

The world outside lay in ruin.

Buildings lined with each other, their foundations weak or tipped farther of their edge so they fell and brought disaster to the ones following. Broken glass lined the street we walked through, a cement line forced upon wreckage of rubble and metal as it smashed upon them prevented any brick or glass shard from falling off. Eerie emptiness embraced us, falling into miles and miles ahead as burning up air and sun shining heavily upon us burned my skin.

There were no people, aside us, a few lost teenagers hoping to escape before it was too late as a soul of deep loss and emptiness followed me every step I took. I then realized my mother's video did no good in truly explaining what had happened, or how it looked outside with the lost state the world was in right now.

Sun, it burned down the earth. Then the Flare emptied it completely. Incurable, the virus took over humans and left emptiness as the only last pieces of humanity were those sent into the Maze by WICKED. Were us. They instilled hope, false hope, yet I wasn't afraid to admit I had none.

"What happened to this place?" Fry cut me out of my thoughts, silence that braced our steps disappeared as his voice cut through louder than expected.

"I don't know." Newt replied, looking through wreckage of empty cars and pavement covered in sand and littered with cracks. "It doesn't look like anyone's been here in a long time." He continued.

"I hope the whole world's not like this." Aris commented sadly, with tracks of hidden hope in his voice.

"Me too." Nico agreed, shoulders slumped over and stance rather broken, as if all hope he had previously left him in dark. I put a hand on his shoulder, making his his head whip toward me, yet let his lips twitch into a distant smile before continuing.

"Woah, hang on, stop." Thomas's words made a pause in our heavy walking, dragging though deserted area and biting air as I almost crashed into a person in front of me. "Do you hear that?" I stood, confused at what he meant, straining my ears and waiting to catch a sound when something of a distant whirring came through. At first I thought it was the sound Grievers produced, blood freezing and ugly, yet as it got closer and closer with every passing minute we stood there, I realized it was not as menacing as that. It was machinery, like a helicopter or aircraft. WICKED's aircraft.