Changes (Newt x OC) (Maze Runner Fanfic)

Monsters.

"Be right there," I said back and finished tying up the stubborn laces.

I came back out of the darkness to join the others and help pack up supplies and fill up water bottles with lukewarm, dirty water. I crouched down Minho as he shoved a rag inside a bottle to clean out the layer of grossness. He let out a groan as he pulled the rag out, and I groaned along with him when I saw it was covered in barf. Bloody barf.

"Gross," he chuckled and threw the rag at the pile of more junk on the other side of the room. "What do you think this place is?" he asked, turning to me as he filled the bottle up from a tank behind him. I looked around us, and thought for a moment, pretending to contemplate on the structural design.

"If my calculations are correct, which they usually are," I said, smiling. "I say, it's a mall."

The boy looked around and nodded in agreement, then shoved the bottle into an already bursting and bulky bag.

"I think it's a community center or something," he said looking up as Frypan grunted hard. He was trying to put five water bottles in one bag.

I laughed at Frypan. "Same difference."

"Nah," he laughed and gave me a bag to fill. I started shoving extra pairs of every article of clothing I could and soon realized the bag was smaller than it seemed. I topped it off with a water bottle, and my lucky dagger. When I finally decided to sit down, instead of hunching beside Minho, I found a tin of mints under the pile of sleeping bags, and the mints were probably the only thing in this 'mall' that didn't smell or look like rot. I shared some with Minho then hid them away in the secret pocket of my jacket for safe keeping.

In the middle of our vibrant conversation we were interrupted by Thomas.

"Hey, Minho, Maya," he said, kicking Minho's side with a smirk. "Let's go explore. I need someone to watch my back."

"More like you'll watch mine," Minho laughed and grabbed the boys hand and yanked himself off the dusty sleeping bags. Minho patted my shoulder and held out his hand. I looked at it for a second, but snapped into action and grabbed it, and snatched my bag, running out, but not before giving Newt a heads up.

I walked off with the boys into the eerie, trashy, dark and dusty halls and stairways of the mall. The beams of light from our flashlights flickered around the room, making shadows that made my heart jump. I tripped a couple times, since I was occupied with not getting any jump scares.

We explored the endless hallways until we reached a large expanse of makeshift tents, junk, and furniture. Everything smelled like mold and was covered with at least one layer of dust. I opened my mouth to say something to break the unbearable silence that filled the insanely creepy area, but Minho beat me to it.

"What are we looking for exactly?" he asked. His question was one of those questions that make you feel silly that you didn't notice it yourself, and I was feeling silly.

"Uh, I don't know, signs of life? People, survivors. Anyone who could help us, I guess," Thomas said, and I saw his shape stumble out of the corner of my eye and I flicked my flashlight over to him, then to the ground to see what he had stumbled on. Instead of a rock or a pile of clothes, like what I tripped on, there was a thick row of many colored cords, that seemed to, when I tried to trace it, run all the way through the mall. I saw far up ahead on its trail, many of the cords branch out, snake up the walls, and either end in the darkness or end attached to an appliance. I looked at the boys, but let my suspicions go when I realized they weren't paying attention to it.

Minho was ahead of us, and I saw him jump back again, and when I shined my light on him, and his eyes were as wide as plates."Does he count?" he said and pointed at a lump on a sofa. I thought it was a pile of clothes, but when me and Thomas stood beside Minho, our lights revealed something more terrifying than a pile of disgusting, dirty laundry. A man was sitting on the sofa. A dead man. His body was layered with coat after coat after coat, which I assumed was to hide the mangled and deformities of his body, but was doing a poor job of it. I could still see the gore through the cloth, and through the plastic bag that was tied tightly around the man's face. The face was brown skinned, but not because of nationality, but because of the huge scars, broken flesh that looked like it had been boiled, and skin that seemed to be rotted to the bone. The mouth was wide open, like the jaw was ready to fall off, and the tongue was gone, just a small stub rested at the back of its mouth. His eyes were more wide open than mine, and they were glazed over, with dust and blood was crusted at the corners.