"OVER HERE! COME ON!" TERESA CALLED AS THEY RAN THROUGH THE SAND. She was running a couple of yards in front of them, and she disappeared behind a hill of sand. They followed her to see that she had stumbled against what looked like a half-buried building.

Alex held up her hand to block her eyes from the sand that was flying everywhere because of the storm. They ran down the hill as well to meet Teresa as she found an opening in the window where it had broken. She had already started down when Thomas yelled to her, "Teresa, wait! No, don't go in there!"

Minho looked around after they all got down the hill of sand, shining his flashlight and observing everything carefully to make sure that there were no signs of life or anything that could possibly be dangerous to them. "Where the hell are we?"

"We gotta go," Thomas told them, and he started in a direction that could lead them who knows where.

"No. Thomas, stop!" Teresa yelled because no one had told her anything about what was happening. Alex remembered that she also did not have any shoes, and it would not be a fun journey for her if they did not find her some soon. From what the curly-haired girl had seen, there was glass and rocks everywhere buried in the sand. "Tell me what's going on."

Thomas sighed and turned around to look at her to explain. He had also not told the others the full story, so he needed to tell them as well. "It's WICKED. It's WICKED. They lied to us. We never escaped. Me and Aris, we found bodies. Too many to count."

"What do you mean? Dead bodies?" Newt questioned with furrowed eyebrows as everyone else nodded along to the boy's story. That explains why they were so freaked out. Alex bet that the people that were going to the "farm" were the bodies in the room, and they were going to be next if they did not get out of there.

She rolled her eyes at the blonde boy playfully. "What do you think, dumbass?"

"No, but they weren't alive either," Thomas answered Newt, causing him to shoot a sarcastic smile at Alex because she was kind of wrong. "They had them strung up. With tubes coming out of them. They were being drained. There's something inside of us that WICKED wants. Something in our blood. So we have to get as far away from them as possible."

"Okay. So, what's the plan? You do have a plan, right?" the former second-in-command questioned when he saw the hesitant look on his friend's face after he asked the question the first time.

Thomas breathed out, and that made Alex really nervous. No wonder Thomas tried to be confident and put together all of the time. People tended to freak out when he wasn't. "Yeah. I don't know."

"Well, we followed you out here, Thomas... and now you're saying that you have no idea where we're going... or what we're doing," the blonde boy scoffed out, throwing his hands up in the air as they all stared at Thomas in disbelief. Alex felt kind of bad because she knew that he had gotten them away from WICKED, which was enough for now.

"Wait," Aris said after a moment, causing all of the heads to turn toward him. Well, all except one. Alex noticed in the corner of her eye that someone's eyes were on her. It was the new kid, the one that was in Aris's Maze, and he was looking straight at her. When he realized that he had been caught staring, his gaze shifted back to the speaking boy. "Janson said something about people hiding in the mountains. Some kind of resistance or army."

Thomas nodded like he remembered something about that, and his eyes widened as an idea came to his head. He added, "The Right Arm. The Right Arm. If they're really against WICKED, maybe they can help us."

"People. In the mountains. Mountain people. That's your plan?" Newt quizzed incredulously. The curly-haired girl had to admit that that seemed a little suspicious. It sounded more like some sort of myth than something real that could actually help them.

The other boy shrugged. "It's the only chance we have."

"Hey, guys. Check this out. Minho, give me a light!" Winston called to them, and they all walked over to where he was crouching and staring at the ground. Minho shined his flashlight to where the boy was pointing, revealing footsteps in the sand that led deeper into the building. "Someone's been down here."

They ventured further into the building, and Alex tried to figure out what it was. There was supplies for living everywhere, but the place was massive. There was no way that people lived there, right? Maybe it was built for a lot of people to live in. Minho brought his light up so that he could look into one of the windows before calling them over to help him open the door. "Come on. Open up." They stepped inside once that was done, and they spread out in the room to examine everything inside. "Looks like people lived here."

"Where are they now?" Newt questioned as he searched through a bin and found a couple of flashlights. He tossed one to Alex and Winston and continued to look through the many bags on the ground.

"Dead probably," the girl answered, and everyone shot her a look like she was not helping the optimism of the group. She threw her hands up and added, "What? It's true."

Thomas grabbed a jacket from a shelf and then scooped up one of the backpacks so that he could start loading stuff inside. "Let's pack some of this stuff up. Anything you think you might need. We'll split up, see what else we can find. Meet back here."

Everyone nodded, and each of them followed his lead in grabbing a backpack before spreading throughout the building. Alex found a jacket on what looked like a fake body to pull over her t-shirt. She was going to need protection from the wind and sand flying everywhere. She shoved some extra clothes into her bag, and she was very happy when she found a hairbrush and ties lying around in one of the rooms. She tied her hair up and placed all of the extra stuff into her bag. She found a couple weapons including some knives and a bat. She stuffed the knives into her pockets and held the bat firmly in her hand. She grabbed a water bottle — well, it used to be a bottle of rubbing alcohol, but it had all dried up.

"From what I've heard, you're the me of your group," said a voice from behind her, and she whipped around the see that the kid that was staring at her earlier was now standing behind her and talking to her. She realized that she was holding the bat up like she was ready to strike, and she dropped it back down to her side quickly.

She processed what he said, and she was still really confused. So, she thought that maybe she just heard what he said wrong. "What?"

"Sorry, I haven't introduced myself. I'm Nick," he informed her before holding his hand out for her to shake. She made no motion to do so and just eyed his hand hesitantly. When he saw her expression, he awkwardly lowered his arm back to the side as he continued, "I was in the Maze with Aris."

"Oh. Um, hi. What were you saying?" she asked, not forgetting about what he had said earlier because she was wondering what he meant by that. What did he mean "the him of my group?"

"Oh, so basically, I was one of the first sent up, and I was the only boy until Aris came along just before we got out," he explained, and it was starting to make sense to her as he pointed to her. That was the same thing that happened to her, just in reverse. "I heard it was the same with you but opposite."

She nodded slowly, and her eyebrows furrowed when she realized that the only people that knew that were the Gladers. None of them had spoken to Nick yet, at least not that she had seen. Besides, even if they had, she doubted they would talk about her, and Thomas doubted that he had spent his time in the vent with Aris explaining her whole life story. "Oh, um, how did you know that?"

"Alex, a little help over here?" Winston called to her before the boy got the chance to answer. They glanced at him to see that he was trying to move a giant case that had a bunch of shelves in it.

"Yeah, just give me a second," she yelled back before turning back to Nick. She gestured to her friend that had requested her help, hoping that he would understand. He did not seem to take the hint because he just stood there, so she finally had to say something. "I gotta..."

Realization crossed his face, and he responded, "Oh, yeah. Of course."

After she and Winston had finished with that and gotten some supplies like rope from the shelves, everyone met back in the middle where Thomas had told them to meet back. The only people missing were Thomas and Minho. The question of where they were was quickly answered by yelling in the distance. They all looked toward the sound and saw the two boys running toward them. Alex's eyes widened when she saw the figures behind them.

They were being chased.

"Shit!" Newt exclaimed, and they all started to slowly move backwards as their friends sprinted toward them. Alex furrowed her eyebrows, wondering why they were not running when people or creatures or something were coming at them.

"Hey! Go! Get outta here! Run!" the two yelled, and when they got close enough, Aris threw Thomas's backpack at him. The boy pulled it onto his back as they began to sprint away from the creatures, and Alex got a glimpse of them as one stumbled into the light of her flashlight. She was terrified. They looked like people except for the fact that there was black liquid pouring from every hole in their faces. "Come on! Let's go, go, go! Let's go!"

Winston asked as they ran up some stairs, "Thomas, Minho, what the hell are those things?"

"I don't know. Just keep going! Come on, keep moving!" They reached the top, but more of the creatures were coming from almost every direction. So, Aris grabbed Alex's bat and ran at one of them. HE leaned down and slammed the weapon into the man's knees. "Aris, no! No!"

Somehow, they got split into two groups. Thomas and Teresa were on another set of stairs, and the rest of them were running a different way. Minho breathed out as he ran next to Alex, "We gotta find a way out of here!"

"Go! Faster, faster!" Aris shrieked as the girl scanned the place for an exit or something else that they could use to get away from the creatures. It seemed like whatever way they turned, there was always more of them running at them.

All of a sudden, a yell from behind them caught their attention. Alex turned her head to see Newt on the ground with one of the things on top of him. He was yelling, and she paused and yelled, "Newt! Newt!" Thomas came out of nowhere and kicked the creature off of his friend, causing it to roll through a glass railing and fall down to the loewe story.

"Newt, you good?" the boy questioned, helping him off the ground.

The blonde nodded at him as they stared incredulously at the thing that just got back up to its feet below them after falling twenty feet, and the rest of them felt safe to keep running. "Yeah. Thanks, Tommy."

"Keep going!" Minho yelled as Teresa also rejoined them. He ran toward a door and opened it for all of them. Alex entered right after Thomas, and she saw that they were in some sort of hallway. "Through here, through here! Let's go! They're coming!"

"Guys, where are we going?" Newt questioned, but no one answered. Alex did not really care where they went as long as they got away from the freaking zombie-like things.

Minho sighed as he, Thomas and Alex reached the end of the hallway. There was nothing there but a wall and a door with a massive lock on it. The girl whipped around as the others caught up with them to see that the creatures were doing the same. "It's a dead end!"

"This one!" Thomas shouted, and she realized that he had found another door that was kind of open and had a smaller lock on it. He and Minho started ramming their shoulders into it in an attempt to break it open, but nothing was happening.

"I'll hold them back!" Winston informed them as he whipped out the gun that he had stolen from that guard and started firing at them. Alex joined his side, pulling the knives out of her pocket so that she was ready if she needed to use them.. She doubted that they would be much help, but it was better than nothing. "Get that door open!"

After a second of that, Frypan yelled to them, "Come on! It's open! Everyone through! Come on! Come on!" The two turned around, and Winson pushed the girl through the door first so that he was the only one left in the room. She whipped around after a couple of seconds when she saw that he was not behind her.

"Winston!" she screamed when she saw him on the ground, holding onto the door as the creatures tried to pull him away. The rest of the group joined her, some of them trying to pull him out while the others pushed the door so that it would close as soon as they got him out.

"Help me! Help! Please! Please!" he begged, and he cried out in pain as one of them dug its sharp fingernails into his stomach, creating deep cuts in his torso and tearing that part of his shirt off. "Oh, my God!"

Alex was panicking, but she remembered the knife in her hand. She swung at the thing that had its hand in Winston's stomach, and the hand came straight off, falling to the ground. Her eyes widened when she realized that it worked, and she started doing the same to the other hands grabbing at his arms and ankles. Finally, the boys and Teresa were able to pull him out as Minho and Thomas tried to hold the door closed. "Go, go, go!"

They ran away, the other two joining them quickly. Winston's arm was around Frypan and Alex, and they were hauling him away because he was losing a lot of blood. Aris and Teresa found a hole in the wall away from everything and called them over. Fry and Alex dragged the boy over to it and laid him down as the other four waved Minho and Thomas over. The curly-haired girl exhaled deeply as she sat down next to her injured friend and leaned her head against the wall, breathing heavily.

What the hell are those things?