Him || The Scorch Trials

One

My name is Mara. I was a part of WICKED's Maze trials, and the last thing I did was shoot myself in the head. The girl's words rang through her head, wincing in pain. Still, she drilled deeper into her mind, looking for anything that could help her.

Was she dead? She didn't feel dead. She felt beaten and injured, she felt sick and angry, but not dead. Even so, she opened her eyes to face... nothing. Just complete darkness. The air around her was eerily cool and moist and the only sound that was present was her own breathing. Something strange hung in the atmosphere, something Mara couldn't figure out.

Her body was still numb, but she couldn't just sit with her back against a solid surface and do nothing. Mara's fingers grazed against the ragged ground below her and pricked against the sharp rocks. In a slight outcome of pain, she pulled her finger away, but that was the least of her problems. After everything she had felt before, that prick wasn't anything. It was just a mere fragment of the pain she had experienced from her memory block up until that moment.

She didn't know where she was, or if she was alone, but she hoped that everything in her past had been a lie, but of course, it was reality. Why did they have to live in this world? Who could have let this happen to their own home?

Mara pushed her thoughts away and fought for her balance, sliding up the wall behind her to stand on her feet. Her head was spinning from where the bullet had grazed her skin and she seemed out of place as her conciseness jumped around in the darkness. Nothing was visible, but she was sure that if she could see her vision would have been blurred and dotted with lines.

All of a sudden a sharp flickering light appeared in the centre of the room and Mara immediately sheltered her eyes with her arms from the ray. Its random presence was what shocked Mara, the light wasn't even very blinding. A thick smell of burning erupted from the light source, and Mara knew at that point it was a candle. Through her fingers, Mara peeked at, what she assumed was a candle, to see a black figure facing away from her and towards the light.

"Who's there?" She called out, her voice masked behind her arms.

"So you're awake, then?" The figure chuckled, her voice recognisable and obviously female. "I was beginning to wonder how much longer I had to wait for you."

"Teresa?" Mara asked, dropping her arms to her side. At that moment, she knew she wasn't dead, because Teresa wasn't dead. Or was she? Anyway, Mara slowly made her way towards the light, hoping there was nothing in her way. "That is you, right? Teresa? What's going on?"

"Shut up with the questions!" She snapped, turning around to face Mara. That was when she knew she was right; it was Teresa.

Surprisingly, Teresa was completely clean without a speck of dust dotted on her clothes or skin. Maybe they were still in WICKED, and they'd allowed Teresa to clean herself up, which was more than Mara could say for herself. Her clothes were dirty and ripped, but she wasn't wearing the WICKED uniform, she was wearing clothes that had belonged to her in the Glade. Her hair hung past her shoulders, but shockingly, it was completely clean and fresh. How could her hair be so clean when her clothes were smothered in dirt and grime?

The way Teresa looked didn't match her expression. She wore a serious and annoyed expression, standing with her feet shoulder width apart and twirling something Mara couldn't quite see until Teresa moved to the left, allowing the light to shine on her object.

A long wooden spear twirled in her fingers as easily as baton, the sharp end slowing as it neared Mara. Everything inside Mara felt wrong; what was Teresa planning to do with that? There didn't seem to be anyone or anything dangerous around them, and the only other person Teresa would have to harm was... Mara.

"What's going on?"

"What did I tell you about asking questions?" She burst out in a yell, rolling her eyes and lifting the spear towards Mara, the sharp end pointing directly at her face. "Just sit down and shut up, got it?"

What was she supposed to do? This wasn't Teresa, so unless WICKED were making her do whatever she was going to do... she wouldn't do that. Surely, she wouldn't do that. But she had threatened Newt's life, she had tormented Mara as a hallucination, and how was Mara meant to know if that was really her or not? Teresa was her friend, or she had been from what she could gather beyond the vague memories she actually still had.

Reluctantly, she gave in, edging back towards the wall behind her until her back leant against the solid surface. Teresa moved towards her as she moved away, keeping the spear in line with Mara's face.

"Now listen to me," She sternly told her, not moving a muscle other than her mouth. "You're not going to say anything unless I tell you that you can or ask for information. Got it?" Mara nodded, her eyes tracing the spear from the tip to the end. Her eyes wandered back up to Teresa's, and she could see the smirk forming across her lips. "Of course, I'll let you scream."

Scream? Mara wanted to react, but by the time she had processed her situation a deep squelch lurched through her stomach, bringing a roaring pain with its arrival. She let out a yelp, which bounced around the window-less room. Her hands immediately clutched the spear protruding through her flesh and pulled, but Teresa held it in place, along with her condescending smirk.

In agony, Mara collapsed on the floor, keeping her back upright against the wall and her legs sprawled out in front of her. Along with that, Teresa knelt down, meeting her eyes and keeping the spear lodged into her stomach.

Now, she knew Teresa wasn't her friend, but she should have known much earlier. It made sense, the hallucinations were her, and the girl who was kind and helpful was a fake. This was her true self, and she took pleasure in Mara's pain. How could she do that? How could she be so evil? There wasn't even a reason, unless there was. What if WICKED had told her to do it for some reason, it wasn't as if they didn't have enough reasons already.

"Why are you doing this?" She spluttered, and finally, Teresa released her grip to allow Mara to pull the spear from her insides. A sigh of relief escaped Mara's mouth, but Teresa snapped her attention away from the relief and ripped her spear from her hands, once again pointing it at her stomach.

"That's funny," The girl chuckled. "You think this is over. Well, I guess even you can be wrong, sometimes."

With another menacing grin, she dug her spear into Mara's blood dripping wound, pushing it deeper into her body until squashed against something inside of her. Another of Mara's ear-piercing wails crashed into everything around her, and her grip tightened on the floor. Her body was collapsing after two deep wounds in the same place, but she knew she wasn't at her highest pain capacity yet, she still had a long way to go before it was as bad as it had been in the past.

But Teresa wasn't finished, she just repeatedly stabbed Mara in the same place over, and over and over again, and then, she moved a centimetre above the wound, and did the same thing.