THE VALIANT » TST [2]

00. Prelude

She was sitting against the wall, her legs pushed up to her chest. Her hands were on each side of her head, her nails digging into her scalp, and she was breathing rapidly.

     WICKED is not good, she thought.

     Margaret squeezed her eyes shut and repeated the phrase like a mantra to soothe herself. Her mind was on the verge of going insane at this point.

     WICKED is not good.

     Her gaze was drawn to a broken pipe dripping small drops of water. It was similar to what was happening with Margaret's memories. Every droplet was like a fragment of her memory. As the droplet fell, her memory faded into nothingness—into oblivion. The memory vanished as soon as it touched the ground.

     WICKED is not good.

     Then she heard footsteps echoing throughout the tunnel, drawing nearer and nearer to her. Margaret rocked back and forth, her eyes closed and her ears covered, repeating the phrase five times faster than before, until she felt someone grab her arms.

     "Get away from me!" Margaret screamed, yanking her arms away from the stranger.

     She sprung back against the wall, finally opening her eyes to see a woman in her late thirties, with brown hair—a couple of gray strands in different areas—green eyes, and a concerned expression on her face. She was kneeling, and her cool hands moved from Margaret's arms to her face, softly cupping her cheeks.

     "Lydia, honey," the woman said, her body trembling, "it's okay. It's me, it's your mother. You're safe."

     Margaret had no idea what the woman was talking about until she gazed deeply into her eyes. She felt as if she were in a dream, seeing herself as a toddler running around in what appeared to be a vast landscape with the woman in front of her. She'd caught her, pretended to eat her, and it made her laugh uncontrollably. And she could just make out a woman's voice in the background saying, "I love you, Lydia."

     "Mom?" She asked, her eyes welling up with tears.

     The woman smiled, slowly nodding her head, relieved. "Yes, honey, it's me."

     Then it all came rushing back to her. Thomas going through the Swipe. The night she met him in the train, after he was taken away from his mother. The name that WICKED had given her, the name she hated so much (her real name was Lydia, not Margaret). Their promises and methods for saving the world from a single virulent virus. The plan she and her mother had devised back at WICKED's headquarters, in which her mother would transport her inside the Glade, right into the heart of the Maze.

     "Mom," she began. "I-I can't do this. I want to go with you."

     Her mother sighed, shaking her head. "You have to, sweetie. You know the risks involved if you choose to go with me. But I promise you, once you've completed the Maze Trial, you'll have the chance to find me. Out in the Scorch."

     "How do you know for sure?" Lydia asked, her nose stuffed up from crying. "What happens if something goes wrong? What will we do then?"

     Her mother quietly chuckled as she looked at her daughter's hands. "You and Thomas are two of the brightest people I know. You'll figure it out together, with or without your memories."

     Lydia felt her mother's cold hands on both sides of her pale face, followed by a kiss on the forehead. Serene was consuming Lydia's insides, a sensation Lydia had enjoyed since she was a little strawberry-blonde, as she was always accompanied by her mother.