Chapter 19 Chapter 19 The Girl's Scream

Just after dark, Thomas heard a girl screaming. At first he didn't know what he heard and thought it was his hallucination.It was indeed difficult to tell what the sound was, because there were also the dull footsteps of their group, the rubbing sound of the package, the sound of heavy breathing, and the sound of low voices.Soon, however, he realized that he did hear the sound, though it was only a hum at first.Somewhere ahead of them, probably in the town or somewhere closer, a girl's scream ripped through the night sky. The others obviously heard the sound, and soon the people in the open space stopped running.Everyone held their breath, trying to make out the disturbing voice.

It seemed to be the sound of a cat, a wounded, howling cat.This kind of sound makes people get goosebumps, and they want to cover their ears and beg it to disappear quickly.There was something unusual about this, and Thomas couldn't help feeling creepy.The night was getting darker and more frightening.Whoever made the sound, she was still some distance away from them, but her piercing scream bumped all the way, echoing endlessly, as if to crush the ugly sound on the ground until it disappeared. "Do you know what that sound reminds me of?" Minho asked softly, his voice full of fear.

Thomas knew. "Ben, Alby, me? I guess, our screams after being stung by a Griever?" "That's right." "No no no," said Frypan plaintively, "don't tell me what sucker Griever we're going to run into here, I can't stand it!" Newt, not far to the left of Thomas and Ares, said, "I doubt it. Remember when their skin was wet and sticky? If you rolled over it, they'd turn into big balls of mud." "Okay," Thomas said, "if WICKED can make a Griever, it can make a lot of other freaks that are worse. Hate to say it, but the Rat Man says it's going to be tough in the end."

"Thomas gave us another pep talk," Frypan said.He tried to look jovial, but his words sounded more like a malicious chirp. "Frankly, how bad is it going to be?" Frypan said angrily: "I know, so bad that all the happy times are gone." "What now?" Thomas asked. "I think we should take a break," Minho said, "feed our bellies and drink up the rest of the wine. We'll leave as quickly as possible while it's getting dark, and maybe we can get some sleep before dawn." Hours." "Is that crazy screaming girl still there?" Frypan asked.

"Sounds like she's busy with her own worries." For some reason, that statement terrified Thomas.Maybe the others did too, because no one said a word, they all silently took the packages off their shoulders, sat down, and began to eat. "Man, I want her to shut up." This was about the fifth time Ares said that as they ran through the dark night.This poor girl somewhere was getting closer and closer to them, and she was still crying agitatedly and loudly. They ate in silence, all depressed.The conversation also turns to what the Ratmen say about variables and how they react to them is what matters.No one has any answers about creating a "blueprint", about finding a pattern for "Killzone", some of which are of course just meaningless speculation.

That's weird, Thomas thought.Now they know they're being tested inexplicably because of WICKED experiments.In some ways, they should act differently because of it, but they just keep going, fighting, surviving until they get the promised cure.That was what they would continue to do, Thomas was sure of that. After a while, Thomas' legs and joints relaxed a lot, and Minho told everyone to move on.A patch of moonlight shone above them, not much brighter than the stars.Fortunately, this road is smooth without any grass, and you can run even if you can't see clearly.Besides, it shouldn't be a hallucination, they actually started to see the lights of the town.He could see lights flickering, probably open flames.This makes sense, the probability of having electricity in this wasteland is next to zero.

He didn't know when the buildings they were running towards suddenly seemed much closer, bigger, taller, and wider than he or anyone else imagined, and the buildings were lined up in an orderly row. spread out.According to the analysis, they feel that this place may have been an important city before, but it has been destroyed by some events that happened in the area.Can solar flares really cause that much damage?Or was it caused by something else? Thomas figured they should reach the first complex sometime the next day. Even though they didn't need a sheet to keep out the wind at this point, Ares jogged next to him, and Thomas said, "Tell me more about the whole thing about your maze."

Ares was breathing evenly, and he seemed to be in as good shape as Thomas. "The whole thing about my maze? What does that mean?" "You never really told us the details, what did you think it was like? How long were you there? How did you get out?" They ran slowly across the wasteland, with creaking sounds under their feet.Ares replied, "I've mentioned it to some of your friends, and most of it must sound exactly the same. Just... women, not men. Some of them have been there for two years and the rest came once a month. Then Rachel came, and then me the next day, and I was in a coma. I can't remember almost anything, except that I was there when I woke up. The last few days have been particularly crazy."

He goes on to explain what's going on, and what he says mostly agrees with what Thomas and the Gladeers have been through, and it's so weird it's almost unbelievable.Ares woke up from a coma and said something about the ending, and that the walls of the maze don't close at night, their cages don't come back anymore, they figured out that the maze has a sequence of codes that keep playing function until they escape.His story unfolds almost exactly like the horrors of the Gladers.Fewer people died in the group other than the girls—which wouldn't surprise Thomas at all, if they were as strong as Teresa.

Finally, when Ares and his group were in the last room, they found a girl named Beth who disappeared a few days ago just like Gary.She killed Rachel just before rescuers arrived and quickly took them to the gym that Ares had mentioned.Rescuers then took him to where the Gladers finally found him—where Teresa's room had once been. If that's how it happened, who knows how it would have played out after witnessing what happened on the cliff and in the plane traverser that brought them into the tunnel?Not to mention the fact that the brick walls and the Ares door had been renamed. All this made Thomas a big headache.

He tried to think of Group B and imagine their roles, and it tormented him—how he and Ares had switched roles, and how Ares was actually Teresa's rival.In the end Chuck was killed instead of him... This is the only and biggest difference between the two parallel groups. Were these arrangements designed to provoke some kind of conflict, or to provoke their reaction to WICKED's research? "Kind of weird, huh?" Ares asked after letting Thomas think about his story a little. "I don't know the words to describe it, but these parallel psychedelic experiments that these two groups went through really blew me away. Or experiments, trials, whatever. I mean, If they're going to test our reactions, I think it makes sense that we've all been through the same thing, weird as it is." Just as Thomas stopped talking, the girl in the distance let out a scream.It was louder than her cries of pain that had become regular, and he felt another pang of fear. Thomas watched Ares carefully, vaguely seeing a surprisingly calm expression on his face. "Really? What's going on?" Ares didn't look too out of breath. "Well, I actually have two thoughts. One is that I think these guys - WICKED, whoever they are - are trying to get rid of the best of both groups in order to take advantage of us in some way, Maybe even to breed us or something like that." "What?" Thomas was so surprised that he almost forgot the scream.He couldn't believe that someone could be that sick. "Nurture us? Go on." "Look, we're out of the maze, and we just saw what happened in the tunnel. Do you still think cultivation is far-fetched? Let me take a break." "Okay." Thomas had to admit that the kid had a point. "Okay, so what's your second guess?" Thomas asked, feeling tired from running, and his throat felt as uncomfortable as if someone had poured a glass of sand down his throat. "It's a guess on the contrary," Ares responded. "Instead of trying to get survivors from both groups, they only need one group to survive in the end. So they either eliminate some people, or the entire group. Anyway, that's the only explanation I can think of." Thomas pondered for a long time before saying, "But what about what the rat man said? Said they were testing our reactions, building some kind of blueprint? Maybe it was an experiment. Maybe they didn't plan to let us Anyone live. Maybe they're studying our brains, our responses, our genes and everything else. When that's all done, we'll die and they'll have a lot of reports to read." "Maybe to see what kind of fights or questions arise. It's a unique situation to study people's reactions." Ares almost laughed. "I like how we ramble—like we Deciding when you need to stop and give your body a break." This time it was Thomas' turn to snicker, and at that moment, Minho told everyone to stop, as if he heard Ares calling. "Convenient time," Minho said panting with his hands on his hips, "keep your heads down and don't get too close. Let's rest for fifteen minutes and then walk a little longer. I know you guys can't keep up with me and A walker like Thomas." Thomas ignored him—he didn't need to be taught how to be handy—and turned to see where they left off.He took a deep breath and relaxed his eyes.Then he saw a dark shape a few hundred yards ahead of them, but not directly in their path. It was a square shadow facing the dimly lit town ahead, so conspicuous was it that he wondered that he had only now seen it. "Hey!" he yelled, pointing at the dark figure, "looks like a small building over there, just a few minutes from here, on the right. Do you see that?" "Yes, I saw it," Minho replied, coming over and standing beside him, "I don't know what it is." Before Thomas could speak, two things happened almost simultaneously. First, the restless screaming of the mysterious girl stopped, and suddenly stopped, as if a door closed on her.Then someone came out of the dark building ahead.They saw the figure of a girl, long hair hanging like black silk from her shadowed head.