After Paradise

Chapter Two ~ Discoveries

When everyone else had woken up, Thomas and another group of the Immunes wandered down to the beach again, to wash properly. Small chunks of peppermint soap were distributed between them as they took it in turns to massage their hair into a fresh lather, and remove the lingering stench of sweat and smoke from their clothes. Some of the little children were playing in the water, rucking it up into huge tidal waves of froth and bubbles, when one of them screamed.
"Fishy! Fishy! I saw a fishy!" Thomas scurried over to them, peering down into the spot they were pointing at. A small shoal of thin fish darted past his feet.
"MINHO!" Thomas shouted, waiting to see Minho's head bob over the edge of the cliff.
"Yes?" He questioned.
"There's seafood down here." Thomas waited to see Minho's reaction. He wasn't disappointed. Minho raced down to the sand, without pausing for a single hesitation, grinning from ear to ear.
"Where is it? What is it?" He gushed, his breath rugged. Thomas broke into a peal of laughter.
"Unfortunately it's still in the animal form," he said drily.
"Oh, great," Minho chuckled, "I thought by seafood you meant you'd discovered an abandoned sushi café or something."
"Wow, very funny," he whittled, "But anyway, did we get any spears in the boxes? Any nets? Rafts?"
"Oh, yeah, cause they gave us a shucking boat," he said, "I think we got some rope, I'll see if any of the women can weave together a net or something."
"Okay, you do that." Thomas said, traipsing after him back up to the campfire. A few people were milling around, scrounging an extra scrap of food from Frypan, but the atmosphere seemed quite relaxed.
"How're ya doing, Fry?" Thomas queried, taking a seat beside Frypan.
"Not too bad," he smiled, "I don't know how long these meals are gonna last though. I mean, we're not getting supplies sent up, and we only have how much was originally up here and whatever we can find."
"Yeah, well later we might try and go fishing!" Thomas watched as Frypan dolloped a mound of mushy vegetables onto people's plates. He was certainly right. With over two hundred people to feed, soon they wouldn't have enough. The food box that had been discovered here only contained dry crackers, sacks of fruit and vegetables and preserves like jam, honey and salt.
Whilst Thomas was gobbling down his meal, Brenda reappeared from the woods. She was carrying herself well; head held high, steps large and brisk, but the emotion in her face couldn't be mistaken. She was handed her food as she sat down opposite from Thomas, and busied herself deftly braiding her hair in one, long plait. Her eyes seemed dull and lifeless, but there appeared to be resentment and anger building in her expression - snapping at the children for running in rings around her, moaning about the food and glaring over at Thomas.
"What's the deal with your girlfriend?" Fry grumbled, scooping out another load of food.
"She's not my girlfriend," Thomas said, "I ended stuff with her yesterday."
"Oh, so that's why she's so angry," Frypan whispered, "Man, shucks to be you right now." Thomas grimaced. This was all so stupid! Why couldn't everyone just concentrate on the important stuff, like surviving for more than a week?

After all the food was consumed, Minho called a group meeting. It was pretty disorganised, people sprawling around on the grass, talking over Minho as he tried to organise people into different job sectors. He finally managed to assign everyone a job, and that meant everyone spent the rest of the day getting started in their sectors; whether it be fishing, weaving, gardening, searching for food, mapping or cleaning. Most of the little children were burdened with washing clothes, ridding them of thick dust or blood stains or mud. They eagerly pulped the laundry in huge basins of fresh water, ending in a huge water fight, which basically meant tipping over the basins on each other and turning the grass to useless, sloshy mush. Thomas regarded them doing so, his eyes warming and his lips tugging up at the edges slightly - it had been a while since he'd seen anyone acting so carefree and alive. He quenched his smile quickly, replacing it with a thin, firm line. It felt wrong to be smiling at a time when so many things had gone badly. Oh, what he would do to be that age again.

When Minho had passed him during the meeting, he issued out the job of 'mapping' to Thomas.
"Tomorrow you'll be with me, Brenda and Aris." Minho informed him, then saw how Thomas's eyes darkened, "Only if you're up to it, huh?" Thomas nodded stiffly, of course he'd have to be okay with it. There was no other option.
Even though, when he caught Aris's eyes latched on to Thomas as he got up and left the circle, Thomas wasn't so sure. He'd been completely uncomfortable around Aris ever since Aris had betrayed Thomas and had been kissing Teresa in front of him. Both of them pretending to hate Thomas, and loving each other instead. That sense of betrayal rose in Thomas's mouth, and with a sour feeling stirring in his chest, he stomped down into the forest, where he found a quiet spot under the knitted canopy of trees, and collapsed onto a bed of damp pine needles, just like he used to do in the Deadheads back in the Glade. He began twiddling a spiky needle between his fingers, bending and snapping it into small shards of natural matter. He did this over and over again. However, breaking other things was never going to fix his segmented heart.

When his hands were numb and pricked, he had a sudden idea. If he climbed a tree, maybe he would get a vantage point and be able to get a head start tomorrow when they went out for mapping the area. At least then, he could split off from the others and not have to deal with either Aris or Brenda. He picked the tallest tree he could find, a slender, silver-skinned one with plenty of branches for good handholds. He scaled the trunk quickly, his muscles soon burning with keeping his body held against the tree, his arms soon on fire with the sudden burst of exercise. Quickly, he reached the top, and rose above the canopy into the refreshing, swirling breeze. His eyes scanned the horizon, noting that the sun was dipping behind the horizon, so he'd need to return shortly. From the valley of trees, with the meadow and ocean to his left and the mountains to his right, he was instantly drawn to the craggy rocks jerking upwards in jagged arcs, cutting off the valley. Just like the Scorch, when they'd had to manoeuvre themselves over the mountains, Thomas felt his instinct digging in his mind. There could be something behind the mountains. He scoured the rest of the landscape, remembering a spot in the a Eastern side where no treetops were visible (a clearing perhaps), and as his eyes returned to the rocky hills, he caught sight of something. A tiny, twinkling light peeking out from between a split in the mountains. A light? A sign of human life? Or Cranks, he sighed. Of course, it could have been a distant star, beginning to pierce through the dissolved sunset, but his gut feeling screamed out that there was definitely something odd. Something worth exploring. Of course, there was no chance he'd be able to get all that way tomorrow, or alone, but maybe if he managed to convince the others, they could trek out there together. He'd have to wait for a bit though, let people adjust. They'd only just started getting settled.

That night, Thomas found it a bit easier to sleep. He'd chosen sleeping in the grass again, of course, but this time He laid out his hammock flat on the ground, and constructed a proper bed, with blankets, and even though he didn't have a pillow, he used a rolled-up jumper to tuck underneath his head. With the warm heat, and the delicious smoky smells of the campfire that Thomas found so much comfort in, wafting over him, he soon melted into a deep, long slumber.

"Kill me or I'll kill you. Kill me! Do it!" Newt's words rang around Thomas's head in sickening lurches. How could his closest friend be asking him of this? Did he not understand how much hurt it would cause himself?
"Newt..." Thomas gazed into the eyes of the Crank who was pinning him down to the road. His normally ruffled, golden hair was mangled and streaked with dirt and his eyes held no sympathy or emotion as he angrily shook Thomas by the shoulders.
"Do it before I become one of them!" Thomas yearned for the real Newt to return, he searched and searched into the Crank's eyes to try and reveal a single piece of sanity belonging to the boy he once was. He could find nothing but rugged terror, combined with a simultaneous mixture of panic and hot, welling anger.
"I..." Thomas's voice seemed to stick to the back of his throat. He was choking on his own words.
"KILL ME!" The order exploded from Newt's mouth, his body shaking with irritation. But what came next was even worse. With a hint of sanity creeping into his voice, his eyes dipping down beneath his charcoal eyelashes in an almost shy sense, and returning to focus on Thomas's with a confused look of guilt and humiliation, he spoke once more, a chilling sentence that Thomas realised would never leave him.
"Please, Tommy. Please." Without even being able to restrain his hand from doing so, his finger squeezed the trigger, the splitting sound of a gunshot ricocheting through the silenced air.
Thomas sensed the hit of a bullet piercing his flesh, he heard the body slumping to the ground in a limp wheeze, but he couldn't bear to look. He didn't even look to see where the bullet had hit, if it had gone into his brain or skimmed past it. He couldn't fathom a thought in his mind, his whole being a shaking sense of nerves and uncontrollable hatred for himself. Without looking back, he stepped away from the scene, into the white van, his eyes brimming with tears that he wanted no one else to see. No one would ever be able to understand.

Shivering, Thomas woke with a start. His whole body was drenched with sweat, his eyes blotchy and his hands clammy but surprisingly cold. The sky was stained pale grey, showing the symptoms of another dawn in Paradise. Paradise. How ironic.
His core temperature seemed to drop, which was a good thing, as it meant sweat no longer beaded on his forehead, and his body stopped spasming and writhing. Although, Thomas suspected that wasn't anything to do with the temperature. That dream, that horrendous playback on the nightmare events of that evening, Thomas was sure would keep replaying in his head until he found some way, some method to getting over it. But that sounded easier said than done.