The New Horizon ~ A Maze Runner Story

- 33 -

Thomas sucked in a breath, "Do you know where she is?"
Doctor Owens shrugged, retracting the paper from his hands. "Not at the moment. She was released this morning--I'm sure you'll see her around."
Thomas suddenly felt a newfound eagerness surging in his veins. He'd find May. He had to. Quickly, he composed himself and nodded. "Thank you for telling me the news."
"Of course," Owens bowed her head, and without saying anything else, she softly closed the door in front of her, leaving Thomas with a rush of purpose: he had someone to find.

After dressing into his daily outfit--an indigo polo and khaki pants--Thomas set off to the cafe for a quick breakfast. Hoping, in the farthest reaches of his mind, that maybe--just maybe--he'd see May. He strode into the buzzing cafe, recognizing a few groups of teenagers from Paradise. Today was their last day at AFA, he remembered, and their time was running short. Immediately his mind refocused onto his friends, out there in the glorious city. What were they doing right now? Were they at a cafe, too--eating and drinking--missing him? Thomas could only wonder.

He sat down at an empty table nestled in between two larger tables, full of noise and chatter.
Thomas gingerly sipped on the hot coffee, feeling its searing liquid radiate through the paper cup. He'd kept an eye out the entire time for May, but he never spotted her. He couldn't anyway, not unless he scoped out every individual table--there were just too many people condensed into that room. Thomas took another sip of his coffee, contemplating where else he could go, where else May would be. Maybe she was in her room, maybe she went back to sleep. Maybe she left AFA all together--that was a possibility Thomas hated to imagine. Maybe she's just--

"Thomas?"
He turned around before she'd finished saying his name. May. He'd only heard that voice briefly, but he recalled it so well; almost as if he inadvertently memorized it, stored it in his memory bank. She was there, her eyes were vibrant, her expression warm.
"May--hey, how are you? How are you feeling?"
"Really well, thanks." She said, sitting down beside Thomas before he even had time to invite her. "I still can't thank you enough, Thomas."

"Doctor Owens told me you're one hundred percent cured," He replied, taking in her presence; the way her eyes flickered from his eyes to the paper cup she held in her hand. The way she sat; relaxed, unaffected by the large crowd around them. The smile that curled onto her face was almost the most uplifting thing Thomas had seen lately.
"It's true," May said, "I feel brand new."
There was that feeling again, when he'd look into her eyes. That blend of nervousness and self-consciousness. But yet, happiness.

The feeling was an oddity Thomas couldn't figure out, but he forced himself to speak before the silence stretched. "Can I ask you what happened--what made you want to come to AFA? How did you know about it?"
May nodded, sitting up straighter, as if preparing herself to open up her barricaded past. "Do you want the long story or the short story?"
Thomas thought for a moment, then said, "Long."

May chuckled. It came out as a mildly deep, soft kind of sound. "I was afraid of that," she drew in a long breath, then exhaled. "I was born in La Pine, Oregon. Both of my parents were Immune, and oddly, I didn't inherit that gene. They worked at a shelter for the infected as guards, keeping the place as sane as they could. They were paid highly for it, and they mostly did it for me--to pay for my expensive treatments, which just slowed the Flare's spread, it never actually cured me. But it was expensive; around a couple hundred dollars per week, every week."
May took a sip of her drink, looking around at the people passing by their table, as if weighing the desire to continue her story, but she did. Thomas could sense the reluctance.

"My parents worked at that shelter until I was sixteen. One day, they . . .," her voice suddenly trailed off. She cleared her throat, averting her eyes onto Thomas's. "The infected people created a mutiny and overpowered the guards--almost every one of them, including my parents . . . And they never came back. Later I found out that the shelter had been burned down, every patient in there was out on the loose, all of them way past Stage Four--pretty much completely psycho."
Thomas hurt so suddenly that the urge to hold May's hand was almost overpowering, but he refrained. May wasn't done yet. She exhaled wearily, but somehow held herself together.

"I figured there was nothing else I could do. I had no way of getting treatment--at least not in Oregon. So, I headed farther north. Eventually, I made it into Washington and received treatment there at a shelter for minors--" she blinked hard, as if internally discarding a memory-- "I stayed for a year, but it was awful, so I left. There had been talk of an organization--AFA--being built in Canada, so that's where I set my course. Two years later, after bargaining for treatments and hopping from shelter to shelter, I made it here. And there was so much freedom in seeing the province's walls. So much that I couldn't stand to be outside of them any longer. I had to get into AFA somehow."

May's eyes softened then, Thomas realized, becoming bashful. And she spoke so delicately that Thomas wouldn't have heard her if he wasn't so hyper-focused.
"And then I met you. And meeting you was worth the wait."