Trials Together (Book Three): The Death Cure

Chapter 1

It was the smell that began to drive Thomas slightly mad.

Not being alone for over three weeks. Not the white walls, ceiling and floor. Not the lack of windows or the fact that they never turned off the lights. None of that. They'd taken his watch; they fed him the exact same meal three times a day—slab of ham, mashed potatoes, raw carrots, slice of bread, water—never spoke to him, never allowed anyone else in the room. No books, no movies, no games

Complete isolation. For over three weeks now, though he'd begun to doubt his tracking of time—which was based purely on instinct. He tried to best guess when night had fallen, made sure he only slept what felt like normal hours. The meals helped, though they didn't seem to come regularly. As if he was meant to feel disoriented.

It was quite likely they were watching him somehow, but there was no sign of a camera or microphone. Not that that meant anything.

Alone. In a padded room devoid of colour—the only exceptions a small, almost-hidden stainless-steel toilet in the corner and an old wooden desk that Thomas had no use for. Alone in an unbearable silence, with unlimited time to think about the disease rooted inside him: the Flare, that silent, creeping virus that slowly took away everything that made a person human.

He thought of the conversation he had had with Teresa, Rachel and Aris the day Ratman had spoken to them in the dorms, before the Scorch. It had been about a dream Thomas had had, a memory. An odd surgery where people in masks had talked about the four of them, how the Flare was rooted deep in their minds.

Thomas had been about seven in that memory, now he was sixteen. There was no way the virus wouldn't have driven them crazy in those nine years if they were infected. Ratman had said they infected them after the Maze, it was only starting to drive him mad.

It made no sense. Every day he tried to reach out to his friends with his mind, but he always failed. Teresa had told him she had been taken to a dorm but there hadn't been time to ask about Rachel and Aris before the connection had shut off.

Were they isolated like him, or something worse? Had it even been Teresa?

He had never been so alone before, in the Maze it was Rachel who had been there, in the Scorch mostly Teresa, Aris hovering somewhere nearby.

Thomas had witnessed first hand the bonds between those who entered the trials together, Boxmates, partners, they always stuck together. The four of them were like that somehow, the odd link between their minds, the exceptions to everything.

It was the utter separation from them that made Thomas hate WICKED more than anything. Those relationships had been created by WICKED, and the Gladers relied on them, at different levels but they all did. Some were inseparable, others would trust each other with things they would never tell another soul.

Those relationships also seemed to be WICKED's favourite toy. Thomas thought of the exchanges he had witnessed between Beth and Gally, where she was independent, but he needed her to continue. How they had been torn apart, reunited, used as murder weapons then separated permanently.

Thomas knew if any of them died he would break entirely. He missed them almost as much as he missed being clean.

He had nightmares of the final chamber sometimes, where Beth's knife didn't miss Rachel, so she bled out on the floor like Chuck. The images of her body stayed for days, hovering over his vision.

Everyone died in his dreams, in ways they could so easily have died in reality.

The lightning that struck Minho tore him apart. The Cranks from the party shot both Brenda and Teresa through the head, sometimes with just one bullet. Harriet dodged one of the bulb monster's blades, but another ran her through. Newt and Sonya overcome by a group of Cranks past the Gone.

All his dreams were death, but never his, he always stayed alive, doomed to always remember. To scream until he woke up and sometimes after too.

None of this drove him crazy.

But he stank, and for some reason that set his nerves on a sharp wire, cutting into the solid block of his sanity. They didn't let him shower or bathe, hadn't provided him with a change of clothes since he'd arrived or anything to clean his body with. A simple rag would've helped; he could dip it in the water they gave him to drink and clean his face at least. But he had nothing, only the dirty clothes he'd been wearing when they locked him away. Not even bedding—he slept all curled up, his butt wedged in the corner of the room, arms folded, trying to hug some warmth into himself, often shivering. He thought of all the times he had slept curled together with his three friends, particularly on the Berg leaving the Scorch. When Teresa had kissed him to quiet the turmoil in his mind. He missed her more than anything.

He didn't know why the stench of his own body was the thing that scared him the most. Perhaps that in itself was a sign that he'd lost it. But for some reason his deteriorating hygiene pushed against his mind, causing horrific thoughts. Like he was rotting, decomposing, his insides turning as rancid as his outside felt.

That was what worried him, as irrational as it seemed. He had plenty of food and just enough water to quench his thirst; he got plenty of rest, and he exercised as best he could in the small room, often running in place for hours. Logic told him that being filthy had nothing to do with the strength of your heart or the functioning of your lungs. All the same, his mind was beginning to believe that his unceasing stench represented death rushing in, about to swallow him whole.

Those dark thoughts, in turn, were starting to make him wonder if Teresa hadn't been lying after all that last time they'd spoken, when she'd said it was too late for Thomas and insisted that he'd succumbed to the Flare rapidly, had become crazy and violent. That he'd already lost his sanity before coming to this awful place. Even Brenda had warned him that things were about to get bad. Maybe they'd both been right.

And underneath all that was the worry for his friends. What had happened to them? Where were they? What was the Flare doing to their minds? After everything they'd been subjected to, was this how it was all going to end?

There was Rachel, how she had broken down from 'voices' in her mind. They had been sure that was WICKED then, but it could have been the virus.

The rage crept in. The anger at WICKED, how many people had they killed. Chuck, Alby, the terrifying story of Nick and Ximena, the attempt on Rachel's life. What was even the point of it all? How could it be justified?

He'd already tried countless times to get the door open himself. And the desk drawers were empty, nothing there but the smell of mildew and cedar. He looked every morning, just in case something might've magically appeared while he slept. Those things happened sometimes when you were dealing with WICKED.

And so he sat, staring at that door. Waiting. White walls and silence. The smell of his own body. Left to think about his friends. He didn't know exactly who was still alive, had never even learnt the names of all the Gladers.

Teresa, Rachel, Aris, Newt, Minho, Harriet, Sonya, Miyoko... The names ran through his mind, like they did every day. No matter how much he strained he could only think of fifteen people that he knew to be alive. Excluding himself, Brenda and Jorge.

There were no more memory dreams in that odd room, not a single one. Thomas dissected every single one he had had in the dorms, the Scorch. Grasping for a sliver of information that could help him. Nothing ever came.

Maybe all that anger was the last string tethering him to sanity as he waited.

Eat. Sleep. Exercise. Thirst for revenge. That was what he did for three more days. Alone.

On the twenty-sixth day, the door opened.