The Scorch Trials Rewrite

Part 6

"Hey! Hey, get out of here!" Thomas screamed, and I jolted up, watching him scare off a raven who'd been digging through Newt's pack.

I stood when he did, stretching out my sore body as I groaned, "Holy hell." With the sun up, I could see everything now. There were no cranks anywhere and we were just outside of the building. "We should get moving."

"Yeah," Thomas agreed. "Let's pack it up."

I squatted down, digging through the bag Minho packed for me. There was something rolled up in cloth, and I unrolled it to see a set of knives, and I grinned at an exhausted Minho. "You packed me knives."

"You always have one you. I figured you'd need more at some point." Minho stood, his bag on his back and a smile on his face.

"You're seriously the best," I said, replacing a knife in my holster for the one I'd lost. I slipped on my gloves, buttoning them at my wrist. My hands had gotten scraped up somehow during the run and I really didn't want it to happen again.

Winston groaned when he tried to sit up and Fry helped him up. Through the bandage Fry had put on his waist last night, I could see black and red. I couldn't imagine how sore he must be. 

We climbed back up the rubble we'd come down on and my mouth dropped at the sight. There were buildings everywhere, all looking just as broken down as the one we came out of last night. If buildings could get the Flare, it probably looked a lot like this. There wasn't one visible street, everything covered by boulders and sand and broken-down cars.

I tried to imagine how this place might've looked before everything, the hustle and bustle of city life, the night life, but I found that I couldn't. Even as we walked through the city, the decrepit buildings on either side of me, I couldn't imagine any life here.

"What the hell happened to this place?" Fry asked.

"I don't know. It doesn't look like anyone's been here in a long time," Newt said.

"I hope the whole world's not like this," Aris said.

"It can't be," I said, though it was wishful thinking. I didn't know what the rest of the world looked like, but if it looked like this, then there probably weren't many survivors anywhere.

Behind me, Thomas said, "Woah, hang on, stop." I looked back to see his eyes squinted intensely. "You hear that?" I listened for a minute, but all I could hear was the wind whooshing around, and I shared a confused look with Minho. Maybe Thomas cracked.

But then I heard it—the sound of helicopter blades getting closer. "Everybody hide!" A large slab of rock was held up by smaller rocks, and it provided just enough space for us to squeeze under to avoid getting seen. Thomas' hand landed on my knee and he craned out just enough to see.

One gigantic helicopter that I didn't even know how it stayed up in the air and two regular sized ones flew over our heads. Normally, I wouldn't think much of it, but they were so close to the ground that I thought maybe they weren't just passing through. They were searching for us.

"They're never gunna stop looking for us, are they?" Minho asked from the other side of the rock wall.

"Not unless we stop them somehow," I replied, pushing back out into the open area.

"Well, how would we do that?" Newt asked.

I shrugged. "No idea."

"That's comforting."

"Well, you know, my last idea didn't turn out so well, so I'm thinking maybe I should cut back on them."

Newt slung his arm over my shoulders as we continued down the path. "Your ideas are fine." He paused for a second, a smirk forming on his face. "When you actually get one."