SONDER (IV): tmr thomas

43: I should bloom

Ella 43

I'm healthy enough to leave during the bonfire.

So, I walk down the steps of the Mirror Homestead. The grass is soft between my feet. Now, finally awake, I roam around this place.

I end up at the place where Zart and I used to garden. It is nice here. I might even describe it as quiet. Last time that I saw Zart, he died. Then, I had been angry at him for letting the Med-jacks try to carve the chip out of my neck, and further lodging it into place.

As he died, I stare him down. I did not forgive him. Touching this grass, looking at plants that he grew in our Glade, I feel bad for boiling his life down to one moment. There must've been so much going on with him being the scenes that I could have never known. So much to his life that escapes me.

Then, I walk to the Walls. I remember watching Dawn fall down once when she climbed them. Since then, I have tried too. Right now they feel more closed in than ever before. Especially since it is dark, and the Grievers are hiding behind these Walls.

When I touched one, I got most everything back of Eli's. The questions that I have left unanswered are ones that WICKED has kept hidden from me too.

With nothing else to look at, besides the Deadheads (which only bring about my memory of a seizure), I return to the bonfire.

The people here vary in age. While a good chunk of them I recognize from our original group, most of them are much younger and much older than I am.

I hear a whistle, and I turn. Through the crowd, Fry waves me down. When I head towards him, I see the corners of his lips raised into a smile.

"Didn't think that you'd even be aware that I whistled, let alone that I whistled at you," Fry smiles. He gestures up to the back of my neck. "How's that healing?"

When I put my hand up to it, he smiles.

"You're lucky they had a surgeon here, or else you'd be a goner," he tells me. "The chip's all cut out of your head now."

He takes off his apron, stepping away from the table with food. As I look around, I realize that whatever few people are here from Group A, I have never talked to them. It's just me and Fry left.

"You're awfully quiet," he jokes.

I shrug, "I've always been quiet."

That earns a chuckle out of him. Fry steers us towards the fire. He sits down on an empty log and pats the space next to him. His sudden shift in talking to me isn't unnoticed by me, which is why I sit down.

What's his deal?

"You think the other girls are alive?" He asks me. "Thomas, Newt, and Minho escaped, but nobody knows what happened to them."

If they hadn't escaped, they'd probably be up here with Fry and me. However, WICKED could've just destroyed their brains as well.

I only care where Leo is. "Your guess is as good at mine."

"Klunk," he mutters under his breath. He puts his hand up against his chin, relaxing into his arm.

Even though I know Leo isn't here, I still look through the crowd at the faces I don't recognize. There have got to be at least 400 people here. This time, will it be enough to satisfy WICKED, or are they truly insatiable?

My eyes spot two girls giggling in the grass together. One of them is pointing up at the stars, though neither of them seems to be aware that the sky is artificial.

The second of the two rolls on to her side to better face the girl. She offers her a violet.