Chapter 60 Chapter 60 Entering the New World

For the next hour, Thomas saw only blurred vision and heard inarticulate voices. The car sped through towns and cities, with heavy rain obscuring much of the view.Streetlights and buildings look crooked and wet, like a drug-induced hallucination.From time to time, people outside the car rushed towards the car. They were ragged, with wet hair sticking to their heads, and their faces were full of horror, all of which were the strange ulcers Thomas had seen on the woman before.They banged on the sides and seemed to want to get in too, to escape their current lives of terror. But the car never slowed down, Teresa still sat silently next to Thomas.

Finally, he worked up the courage to speak to the woman sitting across the aisle. "What's going on here?" he asked, not knowing how to ask. The woman looked at him.Damp black hair fell in strands on his cheeks, and dark eyes were full of sadness. "It's a long story." Her voice was kinder than Thomas expected, and it convinced him that she was indeed their friend—all the rescuers were, even if they had just run over a woman in cold blood. "Please," Teresa said, "please tell us about it." The woman looked back and forth between Thomas and Teresa, and let out a long sigh. "It will take you a long time to get your memories back, if you can - we're not scientists, we don't know what they did to you, or how they did it."

Thinking that he might never recover his memory, Thomas' heart sank, but that was all he could do. "Who are they?" he demanded. "It all started with solar flares," the woman said, looking away. "What—" Teresa asked, but Thomas told her not to speak. Let her finish, he told her mentally, and it looks like she'll tell us. OK The woman was in a trance when she spoke, and she kept looking at the blurry distance, and her eyes never moved away. "Solar flares are unpredictable, but not uncommon, but they are unprecedented, massive, and rising in temperature - once we can observe them, their heat will hit the earth in a matter of minutes ...in the beginning, it was our satellite that was burned, then tens of thousands of people died quickly, and after a few days, the death toll reached millions, and countless lands were turned into wasteland. After that, the disease appeared. "

She stopped and took a breath. "The ecosystem is broken, and people can't control the disease -- not even within South America. The jungles are gone, and the insects are still alive. Now people call the disease Flare, and it's a very, very Terrible disease. Only the richest can receive treatment, but no one can be cured, unless the rumors from the Andes are true." Thomas was on the verge of breaking his own rules—he was full of questions, and fear was creeping into him, as he continued to sit and listen to the woman. "You, all of you - just a small part of the tens of thousands of orphans. They tested thousands of orphans and chose you as the key experimental subjects. This is the ultimate test. The world you live in is carefully calculated and considered. Yes. Using Catalyst to study your reactions, brain waves, and thoughts. All of these attempts to find ways to help us defeat the Flame."

She paused again, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear. "Most of the physiological response is caused by other factors. First people have delusions, then animal instincts overwhelm human nature, and finally destroy them completely, and human nature is lost. It all happens in the brain, and the flame virus survives in them In the brain. This is definitely a terrible thing, and it is better to die if you have this disease." The woman stopped staring blankly into the distance, and turned her attention back to Thomas, looked at Teresa, then looked at Thomas. "We don't allow them to treat children like this. We swear with our lives that we will fight Wicked to the end. No matter what the outcome is, we must not lose our humanity."

She folded her hands in her lap and looked down at them. "As time goes by, you'll learn more. We live in the far north, isolated thousands of meters from the Andes. They call it the Scorched Earth - between here and there, mainly in their At the center of what used to be called the Equator - where there is now nothing but heat and dust, swarming with helpless people infected with the Flare and turned into savages. We are trying to cross that land and find a cure. Finding Before, we would all fight WICKED to stop those experiments and tests." She stared at Thomas, then Teresa, "I hope you can join us."

She looked away again and looked out the window. Thomas looked at Teresa, raising his eyebrows questioningly.She just shook her head, rested her head on his shoulder, and closed her eyes. I'm too tired to think, she said, at least we're safe now. Maybe, he replied, maybe. He heard the soft sound of her sleeping, but knew he couldn't fall asleep.He couldn't tell what it was like, a storm of conflicting emotions coming at him in such a violent storm.Even so, it was better than the boring nothingness he had experienced before.He just sat, looking out the window at the rain and darkness, musing over words like Flare, Disease, Experiment, Scorched Earth, and WICKED by himself.He just sat and hoped that everything would be better than what they had experienced in the maze.

Thomas' body swayed and swayed with the car, and Teresa's head hit his shoulder every time the car hit a bump in the uneven road.Thomas heard her move slightly, then fell asleep again.He also heard other people's whispered conversations, and his mind returned to one person. Chuck. Two hours later, the car stopped. They pulled into a muddy parking lot surrounded by an indescribable building with rows of windows.The woman and other rescuers led the nineteen boys and one girl to the front door and up a flight of steps into a huge dormitory with beds lined up along one wall and a wardrobe and desk on the other.The windows all have curtains, making each wall look different.

With cold, silent disbelief, Thomas accepted it all—he would never be surprised by anything again, nor repressed. The room is full of colors, bright yellow paint, red blankets, green curtains.After spending so long in the drab gray of the glade, it seemed like being transported into a true rainbow.Looking at everything around him, at the beds and the wardrobes, everything was so neat and new—he was almost overwhelmed by a sense of living a normal life, too good to be true.The words that Minho said when he walked into the new world are the most appropriate: "I was shocked, I came to heaven."

It was difficult for Thomas to be happy, and he felt that doing so would be a betrayal of Chuck.But something is wrong here, and there must be. The leader of the car handed us over to a group of staff—a dozen or so men and women, wearing tight-fitting black trousers and white shirts, with smooth hair, clean faces and hands, and smiling faces. The colours, the beds, the staff, it all made Thomas feel like an unreal sense of happiness was breaking into him.Although there is a huge hole in his heart, that heavy sadness may never go away-the feeling comes from the memory of Chuck and his brutal murder, his sacrifice.Even so, even with all this, even with the woman in the car telling them all about the world, Thomas still felt safe for the first time since he got out of the transfer box.

The beds were made, the clothes and bed-linen were given out, and the supper was served.It's pizza.Real, down-to-earth pizza that gets your fingers greasy in your hands.Thomas devoured, hunger overpowering, and he clearly felt the satisfaction and relaxation of those around him.Most were quiet, perhaps afraid that if they spoke it would all disappear, but there were smiles everywhere.Thomas had become so used to seeing looks of despair that he felt a little uneasy at the sight of smiling faces, especially after such a difficult time. Shortly after the meal they were informed that it was bedtime, and no objection was raised. Thomas was no exception, and he thought he could sleep for a full month.