Chapter 57 Chapter 57 The Steep Slope

Immediately the monster was shut down, the device retracted into its fat-covered skin, and its lights went out.The machinery in the body stopped, leaving only deathly silence.And that door... The monster's claws let go of Thomas, and he sank to the ground.There were several wounds on his back and shoulders, the pain was endless, and a burst of intense joy rushed through his body, and he didn't know what to do.He gasped, laughed, choked with a whimper, and couldn't help laughing again. Chuck runs away from the monster and runs into Teresa - she grabs him and gives him a big hug.

"You did it, Chuck," Teresa said, "We put so much thought into the code words that we didn't even bother to look around to see what was being pressed—the last word, is The last piece of the puzzle." Thomas laughed again, in disbelief that after all he had been through, such a difficult thing could be accomplished in such a short amount of time. "She was right, Chuck—you saved us, man! I told you we needed you!" Thomas got up, hugged them both, excited, "Chuck is a great hero!" "How are the others?" Teresa nodded towards the outside of the cave.Thomas suddenly lost his good mood. He took a step back, turned and walked towards the entrance of the cave.

As if to answer her question, someone fell through the black square entrance - it was Minho, who looked like he was scratched and stabbed ninety percent of the time. "Minho!" Thomas yelled, his heart dropped, "Are you okay? Where are the others?" Minho limped towards the curved wall of the tunnel, leaned against the wall and gasped for breath. "We killed a lot of people...there was blood...they were all shut down after that." He paused, took a deep breath, and let it out quickly, "You guys made it, I can't believe it's working .” Newt came in too, followed by Frypan, then Winston and the others.Soon eighteen boys in all entered the tunnel to join Thomas and his friends, and there were now twenty-one Gladers in all.Each of the boys in the rear was covered in monster slime and blood, and their clothes were torn to shreds.

"What about the rest?" Thomas asked, dreading the answer. "Half of us..." Newt said, his voice weak, "dead." There was a moment of silence.For a long time no one spoke. "You know what?" Minho said, straightening his back a little, "Half of us might have died, but half of us actually survived, and none of us got stung—just as Thomas thought We're going to get out of here." a lot of.That's a lot, Thomas thought, for now.His joy faded away and gave way to mourning for the twenty companions who had lost their lives.Even though it was a personal choice, and even though he knew they might be dead by now if they hadn't tried to escape, he grieved, even knowing little about them.After witnessing such a battle to the death, how could he consider it a victory?

"Let's get out of here," Newt said. "Get out of here now." "Where are we going?" Minho asked. Pointing down the long tunnel, Thomas said, "I heard a door open over there." He tried not to think about all the pain—all the horror of that battle he had just won, all the things that had passed away. s life.He knew that even they hadn't become safe from this, so he didn't think about it any more. "Okay, let's go." Minho replied.Without waiting for a response, the older boy turned and walked down the tunnel. Newt nodded and directed the others to follow.One by one, until it was just him, Thomas and Teresa.

"I'm queen," Thomas said. No one objected, and Newt headed down the dark tunnel, followed by Chuck, then Teresa.The tunnel was so dark that the light of the flashlight was almost swallowed by the darkness.Thomas followed without even looking at the corpse of the monster behind him. After walking for about a minute, he heard a scream in front of him, another, and another.Their cries fade away, as if they, too, are passing away. There were whispers of people all the way up the front, and Teresa finally turned to Thomas and said, "It seems the sound disappears at the front sliding door, all the way down."

Thomas gets stomach cramps just thinking about it, and it looks like a game—at least, to the people who built the place. He heard screams from people in front of him one after another, their voices gradually fading away.Then Newt yelled too, and Chuck was next.Teresa turned on the flashlight and looked down, and saw a smooth black metal groove, the metal groove was steep and extended continuously downwards. I think we have no choice.She spoke to him telepathically. That's right.Thomas felt strongly that this wouldn't be the end of their nightmare, and he only hoped it didn't lead them to another pack of monsters.

Tereza slid down the metal trough, squealing with excitement, and Thomas followed her before he could convince himself that anything was better than a maze anyway. He landed on a steep incline, and as he slid his body was coated with an oily goo that smelled disgusting—like burnt plastic or overused machinery.He twisted his body, moving his feet forward, and then tried to slow himself down with his hands outstretched.But it didn't help - the oily liquid was all over the stone, and he couldn't catch anything. The screams of the others echoed from the tunnel walls as they slid down the greasy metal trough, and Thomas was filled with terror.The image of them being devoured by some giant beast kept flashing in his mind, sliding into the beast's long esophagus, and might fall into its stomach at any moment.Sliding and sliding, his imagination seemed to become reality, and the smell changed—it seemed to be a musty and rotten smell.He felt nauseous, and it took all his strength not to vomit.

The tunnel began to bend into a rugged spiral, slowing them just in time, and Thomas' kick caught Teresa, hitting her hard on the head.He quickly retracted his feet, his whole body was overwhelmed by a strong sense of pain.They are still falling, and time seems to be extending, infinitely extending. They slid down this tunnel tube round and round, their bodies squeezing mucus, the smell of mucus, going around in circles—all of which made his stomach churn.Just as he was about to turn his head to the side of the tunnel to vomit, Teresa let out a piercing scream—no echo this time.After a while, Thomas burst out of the tunnel and crashed into her.

There were their own people everywhere, their bodies stacked on top of each other, moaning and writhing, trying to push each other away.Thomas wiggled his hands and feet, separated from Teresa, crawled a few steps and began to vomit violently, clearing out his stomach. Thomas was still shaking from what he had just experienced. He wiped his mouth with his hand and found that his hand was full of sticky filth.He sat up, wiping his hands on the floor, and finally had a chance to take a good look at the place they had come to.Opening his mouth wide, he saw everyone else gathered together, forming a small group to observe and study the new environment.Thomas had seen this place before when he was in transition, but he didn't really remember it until he entered it.

They were in a huge basement that was as big as nine or ten living quarters.From top to bottom, side to side, the place is full of machines, wires, pipes, and computers.On one side of the basement—to his right—was a row of large white containers that looked like gigantic coffins, almost forty of them.On the other side, opposite these containers, stood large glass doors, but the light made it impossible to see what was on the other side. "Look!" someone yelled.He saw it, and his breath caught in his throat, his skin crawled, and a creeping dread ran down his spine, as if a spider had crawled over it. Directly in front of them, a row of about twenty vaguely light-colored windows spread out horizontally, one after the other.Behind every window a figure—male and female, all pale and emaciated—sat and watched the Gladiators, squinting at them through the glass.Thomas shuddered—they looked like a bunch of ghosts, angry, hungry, evil ghosts who had never been happy in life, let alone in death. Of course Thomas knew they weren't ghosts, they were the ones who sent everyone into the glade, the ones who wanted to kill them— creators.