SOJOURNER (III): tmr gally

09: I should have compression

Leo 9

It takes a few minutes for Ella to settle down, and a lot of shouting as we explain where we are and what has happened. Whoever this Eli was, or Emil, must've been her counterpart in their group. Everyone seems to have one, since the only difference between us is our numbers. I wonder who B57 is. I wonder what his role is in all of this. I wonder how similar we are.

"Are we out, then?" Harriet asks, packing up her stuff.

"Seriously?" Rose asks. She seems pissed. "Michelle and I got like twenty minutes of sleep. This is a load!"

Michelle doesn't seem to mind. The bags under her eyes are no different than usual. She shrugs, rolling up her sleeping bag. She tosses it to me, and I would drop it in my backpack, but I've got no room. I put the sleeping bag under my arm instead. In turn, I throw her a granola bar.

She catches it, glaring at me. She eats it anyway, before taking a swig from the canteen on her belt. I didn't know she had one before now.

"We're moving," Harriet takes one of the extra sleeping bags, and Sonya takes the other. My backpack is practically completely full with all the klunk I need to carry. I lug it behind me, thankful Ella can walk for herself.

Before she leaves, Harriet turns to Teresa. "How did it go?"

Teresa shakes her head. "It was awful."

"What happened?" I ask. Dawn moves up beside me, crossing her arms over her chest.

Teresa shakes her head, before biting down on an apple. It must be bitter, because her expression only tightens. "It was a shucking mess. I made him feel safe."

"How?" Dawn comes across as antagonistic, so I elbow her.

Teresa shakes her head. "It was shucking awful. They made me kiss him. WICKED was controlling my body."

"They did that to Alby too," I offer. I remember that. He almost strangled himself when he tried to tell Thomas and Newt what he remembered during the Changing. Back when he was alive, WICKED had a strong hold on him. They kept him under controlling.

"That's stucking messed," Marie offers.

Harriet nods. "At least we don't have to have contact with Thomas until the tenth night." She ignites her flashlight, before shining it out the door. "Are we good to move?"

Everyone nods in agreement, and she leads us out the door. Sonya heads up the back of the party, waiting for all of us to clear out. Other than her, I'm the last to go.

There is too much clutter on the ground for us to jog. The hallways are thin, and it is extremely dark. Even when my eyes adjust to the dim lighting, I can't see farther than a few inches in front of me. Even Dawn is invisible.

"We're going to walk, no breaks, until night," Harriet calls out.

"Seriously?" Rose demands.

"Would you rather we jog?" Harriet argues.

No one agrees to that. Maybe that's how she gets consensus. She proposes her idea, and then one infinitely worse. If those are the only two possibilities, who in their right mind would disagree?

So, we continue walking without breaks. There is no sign that we are getting any further than we have been. Maybe these tunnels are slightly curved, and we have yet to realise it. We could be walking in circles. We could be miles ahead or behind the other group. I couldn't tell you. I don't know where we are going. I'm in the dark, in the dark.