𝗖𝗨𝗥𝗜𝗢𝗨𝗦, thomas (tmr)

Chapter Twenty Nine

As the door to the helicopter opened, a gust of cold wind flew in and woke the sleeping Gladers. Clara startled, sitting up from where she was slumped against a still-asleep Thomas.

She was too drowsy to process what was going on: the lights, the shouting, and the chaos weren't doing much to help. Frypan tugged gently on her arm then, pulling her towards the open door of the helicopter.

They had landed on a long strip of concrete, which led up to a large warehouse, illuminated by blinding floodlights. They were still surrounded by desert - which seemed to go on forever - and there were hundreds more soldiers all situated around the concrete and the building with guns on the lookout.

What were they protecting it for? Or from?

Clara leaned back over to nudge Thomas awake. He jolted awake in the same fashion she did, blinking confusedly, far too exhausted for it all. His face was still tear stained, and Clara could feel her heart breaking.

"We have to go." She half yelled to be louder than the background ruckus, in a way that let Thomas realise the urgency of it.

Clara let herself be helped out of the helicopter by a frantic soldier, glancing back to see Thomas scrambling to reach the small figurine Chuck gave him before he died. She slowed to allow him to catch up, stubbornly ignoring the men around all yelling at her.

"You gotta go!"

She didn't understand any of it. Obviously, something about the place was dangerous. They were all talking in a way that suggested something around was a threat, and that they needed to be protected.

But what was it?

Clara received her answer when the soldier beside her opened fire on the sand dunes in the distance. She jumped out of her skin, stumbling over her feet and letting Thomas stabilise her as she searched for where the shots were being fired.

On the sand she could see a number of figures all moving in erratic ways: almost inhumanely. Whatever they were, they were the threat. The soldiers were clearly trying to keep them from reaching the warehouse, and the guns seemed to be helping with that quite well.

Clara joined Thomas and their friends in sprinting towards the warehouse building. As curious as she was about the outside, she wanted far more to be in the safety of the building in front of her: assuming it was safe.

She really didn't have the energy for if it wasn't safe.

As the Gladers ran towards it, a number more soldiers ran in the direction they came from, all brandishing guns and yelling orders to one another. Clara could hear more gunshots behind her, but forced herself to push it out of her mind as she reached the doors of the building alongside her friends.

They slipped inside, instantly being met with a gust of cold air and a strong smell of hospitals. Or at least, what Clara imagined hospitals would smell like. It vaguely reminded her of the Med-jack hut, but much more potent.

The inside was exactly what you'd expect of a warehouse: filled with crates, small forklifts and a number of more soldiers and workers milling about the place. And no one was batting an eye at them.

They looked insane. Sweaty, exhausted, all scratched up; yet no one took a single look at them.

After a few minutes of frantically looking around for where they were supposed to go, the Gladers were shunned into a room off a small corridor from the entrance. Inside was a long table piled with food. Needless to say, the Gladers were starving.

It took them no time at all to eat it.

And then, as they were lounging around with stomachs stuffed with rice, cheese, and other foods, they remembered they had been shoved into the room with no explanation. They remembered that they knew nothing about the people who took them there. And they remembered the people they left behind when they escaped in the helicopter.