The Scorch Trials - James Dashner [16]
“Glad to see you still know how to take a nap.”
Thomas peeked through a squint and saw Newt standing next to his bed, staring down at him.
“How long’s it been?” Thomas asked, forcing thoughts of Teresa and the dream—memory?—into a dark corner of his mind to agonize over later.
Newt looked at his watch. “Couple hours. When people noticed you lie down, it actually kind of relaxed everyone. Not much we can do but sit and wait for something new to happen. There’s no way out of this place.”
Thomas tried not to groan as he scooted himself into a sitting position, his back against the wall at the head of his bed. “Do we even have any food?”
“No. But I’m pretty sure these people wouldn’t go through all this trouble to bring us here, trick us or whatever they’ve done, just to let us buggin’ starve to death. Something will happen. Reminds me of when they sent the first group of us to the Glade. The initial group of me and Alby and Minho and some others. The original Gladers.” He said that last part with a not-so-subtle burst of sarcasm.
Thomas was intrigued, surprised he’d never before dug into what that had been like. “How does this remind you of that?”
Newt’s gaze was focused on the brick wall outside the closest window. “We all woke up in the middle of the day, lying on the ground around the doors to the Box. It was closed. Our memories had been wiped, just like yours when you came. You’d be surprised at how quickly we pulled ourselves together and quit panicking. There were about thirty of us. Obviously, we had no bloody clue what had happened, how we’d gotten there, what we were supposed to do. And we were terrified, disoriented. But since we were all in the same crappy situation, we organized ourselves and figured out the place. Had the full farm running within days, everybody with their own job.”
Thomas was relieved that the pain in his skull had diminished. And he was intrigued to hear about the start of the Glade—the scattered pieces of the puzzle brought back by the Changing weren’t nearly enough to form solid memories. “Did the Creators have everything in place already? Crops, animals, all that?”
Newt nodded, still staring at the bricked-up window. “Yeah, but it took a ton of work to get it going nice and smooth. A lot of trial and error before we accomplished anything.”
“So … how does this remind you of that?” Thomas asked again.
Finally, Newt looked at him. “I guess back then we all just had a sense that there was obviously a purpose to us having been sent there. If someone had wanted to kill us, why wouldn’t they have just killed us? Why would they send us to a huge place with a house and a barn and animals? And because we had no other choice, we accepted it and started working and exploring.”
“But we’re already done exploring here,” Thomas countered. “No animals, no food, no Maze.”
“Yeah, but come on. It’s the same concept. We’re obviously here for a buggin’ purpose. We’ll figure it out eventually.”
“If we don’t starve first.”
Newt pointed at the bathroom. “We’ve got plenty of water, so it’ll be at least a few days before we drop dead. Something will happen.”
Deep down Thomas believed it, too, and was only arguing to solidify it in his own mind. “But what about all those dead people we saw? Maybe they rescued us for real, got killed, and now we’re screwed. Maybe we were supposed to do something, but now it’s all been messed up and we’ve been left here to die.”
Newt burst out laughing. “You’re one depressing piece of klunk, slinthead. Nah, with all those corpses magically disappearing and the brick walls, I’d say this is something more like the Maze. Weird and impossible to explain. The latest and greatest mystery. Maybe our next test, who knows. Whatever’s going on, we’ll have a chance, just like we did in the bloody Maze. I guarantee it.