The Desolation (The Maze Runner)

1. Salsa

The screens were dark in front of her, the sound of the fan buzzed in her ears. The Scorch, the place she lived in, was a desolated city filled with fear and death. No one came here voluntarily, but she did.

It was the best place to hide and she was pretty sure that she never wanted to get close to people ever again. Her name was Salsa and she was a trained soldier, a daughter of two Immunes who had served WICKED and the country. But her parents were betrayed by the most powerful organisation in this destroyed world, killed in the most conspiratorial and shadiest way possible. Three years later, Salsa was here alone in the ruins of the desert, living like a ghost and a shadow so WICKED could never find her again.

The thin sun rays that poured into the room like shattered moonlight made her shiver. They marked another rising day. The girl got up, fastening her dark hair in a tight ponytail and studying her face in the small mirror. It was seven a.m. and she cleaned her black jacket, wiping off the desert dust.

She reached for her backpack and the two smaller guns that she used while making the morning patrol around the area. It was her day-by-day duty, to check if the zone within four miles from her place was safe. She didn't need any unbidden guests- they could be pretty monster like. Not that she couldn't deal with them, she just didn't need any attention.

Years ago when the Sun has scorched the Earth, in one of the ghost-cities a virus escaped the safe prision of a laboratory. It was called The Flare and it attacked the brain turning people into zombie like mosteres, mad creatures who only searched for human flesh. Still there were a few who could live without being infected - immunes. To find a cure the goverments created World in Catastophe Killzone Department, but WICKED took the money to experiment on teens. They build a huge Maze, designed monsters and traps, put the immunes through trials, unfortuanately so far no effort was made. 

Deep in her dark thoughts Salsa left the complicated passage of corridors, hidden doors and stairs that led from her current hideout to the city, and appeared in the main hall of the devastated building she was living in. Her steps were fast and her ears were focused on everything around her, listening for any suspicious sound.

She stepped into the bright daylight and checked her gun. The sun was burning right into her face but she was used to it. After three years in this city, the heat had stopped bothering her.

The girl moved into the shadow of the next building and stopped when she spotted two men. They were trying to kill each other with huge stones. For a second, she considered shooting them both to help end their hopeless existence but then she decided that they should do it themselves. They were too engrossed with their fight to notice her and she knew that before she would finish the patrol, they'd both be dead. They also reminded her of someone she wished to forget.

She turned back and took the sunny side of the building, brows pulled together with worry. Two nights ago, one of those fake lightning storms had crossed the city. It meant that they were planning something. Some soldiers, or WICKED employees, or even test persons might enter the Scorch, so the girl needed to be double cautious.

Whatever they did, they weren't finding any solutions anytime soon. Today all the sad memories stormed her mind, putting her in a nostalgic mood. It was four years ago, the day when she visited her mum in WICKED's headquarters and saw the kids they planned to put into the Maze. She remembered this boy; around thirteen with scared huge dark eyes, the one who haunted her nightmares because even if she had punched Janson for it and had probably broken his nose, she couldn't help the boy. She wondered what had happened to him, if he had survived.

The young woman was deep in her thoughts when she jumped over a rusty fence and ran to the next building. She stopped, catching hint of a few voices- a lot of voices. It sounded like something was about to happen. She knew the area too well. The voices were south from the next edifice, so she took a shortcut through an old parking lot and ran in that direction then climbed up the fire escape to get quicker access to the second floor. The girl reached it and hurried to the windowless space on the other side. Her figure merged into the shadows and seconds later, her eyes focused on the street below.