Forward.

Warmer.

Thirsty.

Darkness.

Walking. Time passed ever so slowly.

Thomas had no idea how this hallway could even be possible. They had to have journeyed at least two or three miles since last hearing the creepy whisper of warning. Where were they? Underground? Inside some massive building? The Rat Man had said they needed to find open air. How―

A boy screamed a few dozen feet in front of him.

It started out as an abrupt shriek, like simple surprise, but then escalated into pure terror. He didn't know who it was, but the kid was now screaming his throat raw, screeching and squealing like an animal at the old Blood House in the Glade. Thomas heard the sounds of a body thrashing on the ground.

He ran forward on instinct, pushing past several Gladers who seemed frozen by fear, moving toward the inhuman sounds. He didn't know why he thought he'd be able to help more than anyone else, but he didn't hesitate, not even taking care with his steps as he sprinted through the darkness. After the long insanity of walking blindly for so long, it was as if his body craved the action.

He made it, could hear that the boy now lay right in front of him, his arms and legs thrashing on the concrete floor as he struggled against who knew what. Thomas carefully set his water bag and shoulder pack far to the side, then timidly reached forward with his hands to find a grip on an arm or leg. He sensed the other Gladers crowding behind him, a loud and chaotic presence of shouts and questions that he forced himself to ignore.

"Hey!" Thomas yelled at the squirming boy. "What's wrong with you?" His fingers brushed the kid's jeans, then his shirt, but the boy's body convulsed all over the place, impossible to catch, and his shrieks continued to pierce the air.

Finally, Thomas went for broke. He dove forward, launching himself fully onto the body of the thrashing kid. With a jolt that knocked the breath out of him, he landed, felt the squirming torso; an elbow dug into his ribs, then a hand slapped his face. A knee came up and almost got him square in the groin.

"Stop it!" Thomas shouted. "What's wrong!"

The screams gurgled to a stop, almost like the kid had just been pulled underwater. But the convulsing didn't ease in the slightest.

Thomas put an elbow and forearm on the chest of the Glader for leverage, then reached out to grab his hair or his face. But when his hands slid over what was there, confusion consumed him.

There was no head. No hair or face. Not even a neck. None of those things that should've been there.

Instead, Thomas felt a large and perfectly smooth ball of cold metal.

CHAPTER 15

The next few seconds were beyond strange. As soon as Thomas's hand made contact with the odd metal ball, the boy stopped moving. His arms and legs stilled and the stiffness in his twitching torso went away in an instant. Thomas felt a thick wetness on the hard sphere, oozing up from where the kid's neck should've been. He knew it was blood, could smell the coppery scent of it.

Then the ball slipped from under Thomas's fingers and rolled away, making a hollow grating sound until it thumped into the closest wall and came to a stop. The boy lying below him didn't move or make a sound. The other Gladers continued to shout questions into the dark, but Thomas ignored them.

Horror filled his chest as he pictured the boy, what he must look like. Nothing about it made sense, but the kid was obviously dead, his head cut off somehow. Or ... turned into metal? What in the world had happened? Thomas's mind spun, and it took a moment before he realized that warm fluid was flowing over the hand he'd pressed to the floor when the ball slipped away. He freaked.

Scooting backward away from the body, wiping his hand on his pants, he shouted but wasn't able to form words. A couple of Gladers grabbed him from behind and helped him to his feet. He pushed them away, stumbled against a wall. Someone gripped his shirt at the shoulder, pulled him closer.

"Thomas!" Minho's voice. "Thomas! What happened?"

Thomas tried to calm himself, take hold of things. His stomach lurched; his chest tightened. "I ... I don't know. Who was that? Who was down there screaming?"

Winston answered, his voice shaky. "Frankie, I think. He was right next to me, just making a joke, and then it was like something yanked him away. Yeah, it was him. Definitely him."

"What happened!" Minho repeated.

Thomas realized he was still wiping his hands on his pants. "Look," he said before taking a long breath. Doing all this in the dark was maddening. "I heard him screaming, and ran up here to help. I jumped on him, tried to pin his arms down, find out what was wrong. Then I reached for his head to grab him by the cheeks―I don't even know why―and all I felt was ..."

He couldn't say it. Nothing could possibly sound more absurd than the truth.

"What?" Minho shouted.

Thomas groaned, then said it. "His head wasn't a head. It was like a ... a big ... metal ball. I don't know, man, but that's what I felt. Like his shuck head had been swallowed by ... by a big metal ball!"

"What're you talking about?" Minho asked.

Thomas didn't know how he could convince him or anyone else. "Didn't you hear it rolling away right after he stopped screaming? I know it―"

"It's right here!" someone shouted. Newt. Thomas heard a heavy scrape again, then Newt grunting with effort. "I heard it roll over here. And it's all wet and sticky―feels like blood."

"What the klunk," Minho half whispered. "How big is it?" The other Gladers joined in with a chorus of questions.

"Everybody slim it!" Newt yelled. When they quieted, he said flatly, "I don't know." Thomas heard him carefully handling the ball to get a feel for it. "Bigger than a buggin' head for sure. It's perfectly round―a perfect sphere."

Thomas was baffled, disgusted, but all he could think about was getting out of that place. Out of the darkness. "We need to run," he said. "We need to go. Now."

"Maybe we should go back." Thomas didn't recognize the voice. "Whatever that ball thing is, it sliced off Frankie's head, just like the old shank warned us."

"No way," Minho responded angrily. "No way. Thomas is right. No more dinkin' around. Spread out a couple of feet from each other, then run. Hunch down, and if something comes near your head, hit the living crap out of it."

No one argued. Thomas quickly found his food and water; then some unspoken communication permeated the group and they set off running, far enough apart not to trip over each other. Thomas wasn't in the very back anymore, not wanting to waste time to get back in order. He ran, ran as hard as he remembered ever running in the Maze.

He smelled sweat. He breathed dust and warm air. His hands grew clammy and gooey from the blood. The darkness, complete.

He ran and didn't stop.

A death ball got one more person. It happened closer to Thomas this time―got a kid he'd never spoken one word to. Thomas heard a distinct sound of metal sliding against metal, a couple of hard clicks. Then the screams drowned out the rest.

No one stopped. A terrible thing, maybe. Probably. But no one stopped.

When the screams finally cut off with a gurgling halt, Thomas heard a loud clonk as the ball of metal crashed onto the hard ground. He heard it rolling, heard it clank against a wall and roll some more.

He kept running. He never slowed.

His heart pounded; his chest hurt from deep, ragged breaths as he desperately gulped the dusty air. He lost track of time, had no sense of how far they'd gone. But when Minho called for everyone to stop, the relief was almost overwhelming. His exhaustion had finally won out over the terror of the thing that had killed two people.

Sounds of people panting filled the small space, and it reeked of bad breath. Frypan was the first one to recover enough to speak. "Why'd we stop?"

"'Cause I almost broke my shins on something up here!" Minho shouted back. "I think it's a stairway."

Thomas felt his spirits lift, but immediately squashed them back down. Getting his hopes up was something he'd sworn never to do again. Not until all this was over.

"Well, let's go up 'em!" Frypan said far too cheerfully.

"Ya think?" Minho responded. "What would we do without you, Frypan? Seriously."

Thomas heard the heavy stomps of Minho's footsteps as he ran up the stairs―it made a high-pitched ringing like they were made of thin metal. Only a few seconds passed before other footsteps joined in, and soon everyone was following Minho.

When Thomas reached the first step, he tripped and fell, banging his knee against the second one. He put his hands down to regain his balance―almost bursting his bag of water―then popped back up, skipping a step every once in a while. Who knew when another metal thing might attack, and hope or no hope, he was more than ready to move on to a place that wasn't pitch-black.

A bang sounded from above, a deeper thump than the footsteps, but it still sounded like metal.

"Ow!" Minho yelled. Then there were a few grunts and groans as Gladers bumped into each other before they could stop themselves.

"You okay?" Newt asked.

"What'd ... you hit?" Thomas called up through heavy breaths.

Minho sounded irritated. "The shuck top, that's what. We hit the roof, and there's nowhere else ..." He trailed off, and Thomas could hear him sliding his hands along the walls and ceiling, searching. "Wait! I think I found―"

A distinct click cut him off, and then the world around Thomas seemed to ignite into pure flame. He cried out as he covered his eyes with his hands―a blinding, searing light shone down from above. He'd dropped his water bag, but he couldn't help it. After so long in pitch-darkness, the sudden appearance of light overpowered him―even through the protection of his hands. Brilliant orange burst through his fingers and eyelids, and a wave of heat―like a hot wind―swept down.

Thomas heard a heavy scrape, then a clonk, and the darkness returned. Warily, he dropped his hands and squinted; spots danced across his vision.

"Shuck me," Minho said. "Looks like we found a way out, but I think it's on the freaking sun! Man, that was bright. And hot."

"Let's just open it a crack and let our eyes get used to it," Newt said. Then Thomas heard him walk up the stairs to join Minho. "Here's a shirt―wedge it in there. Everybody shut your eyes!"

Thomas did as he was told and covered them with his hands again. The glow of orange returned and the process began. After a minute or so, he lowered his hands and slowly opened his eyes. He had to squint, and it still seemed like a million flashlights were pointed at him, but it had become bearable. A couple of minutes more and everything was bright but fine.

He could now see that he stood about twenty steps down from where Minho and Newt crouched just beneath the door in the ceiling. Three shining lines marked the edges of the door, broken only by the shirt they'd stuffed in the right corner to keep it open. Everything around them―the walls, the stairs, the door itself―was made of a dull gray metal. Thomas turned around to look back in the direction from which they'd come, saw that the stairs disappeared into darkness far below them. They'd climbed up a lot more than he'd imagined.

"Anybody blind now?" Minho asked. "I feel like my eyeballs are roasted marshmallows."