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I awake sharply to my side burning with pain. I cry out as I shoot up straight from my lying down position. I gingerly bring a hand to my side and look down to see it’s been covered with strips of t-shirts as a makeshift bandage. 

I get up from where I was lying on a sheet on the ground, wincing slightly at the radiating pain on my side from doing so, and take a look around. I’m in a large building that looks like it used to be some sort of shopping centre although half of the floors are covered in a thick layer of sand. 

I stand up straight and start to walk around the building. Where are the others?

“Hello? Guys?” I call out as I wander around in the dim light of the building. I hear the dull sound of voices from around the corner and cautiously walk around the corner. I bang into someone suddenly, causing me and the other person to both shout out in surprise. 

“Cassie!” The person, Minho, exclaims as they pull me into a hug. I hear more footsteps and see Thomas walk around the corner.

“You’re awake!” he exclaims with a happy grin, “How are you feeling?” I shrug.

“It still hurts but i’ll be fine,” I answer as I pull back from Minho’s hug. 

“Where are the others?” I question curiously. I had to walk half-way across the building and down a flight of stairs to bump into them. I’d think that at least one of the others would’ve been closer by.

“I told Jack to stay with you while we searched around the place for supplies,” Minho tells me. 

“Well there was no-one there when I woke up,” I say with a shrug. 

“We should keep taking a look around. We might find something useful,” Thomas says as he leads us down the hallway, holding out a flashlight to guide us. 

“So, can you maybe explain the whole story around why we had to leave the compound? Other than the fact that Janson has proved himself to be completely crazy,” I ask Minho as I walk beside him. 

As we walk, Minho explains to me the bodies that Thomas and Aris found, how Ava Paige is still alive and that Janson was WICKED the whole time. The last one wasn’t much of a surprise honestly. 

Lastly, Minho tells me about the Right Arm. A resistance group that Thomas and Aris overheard Janson talking about. They live at the base of the mountains which is where we’re headed. 

We keep walking and eventually reach some sort of electrical room or something. We look around and see all the various machines that look like handmade generators. 

“They had power,” Minho states. Minho and Thomas start to look around the room and spot a pair of doors in the corner. They walk up to it and start to walk through. I quickly rush after them, not wanting to be stuck alone in the creepy building in the dark. 

I follow closely behind Thomas as he and Minho split up, walking around the room and shining the flashlights to see. Thomas and I walk up to some sort of chain link fence that has buckets of teddy bears and dolls in front of it and tied to it. 

“Well, that’s super creepy,” I mumble as Thomas curiously walks closer to the horror fence, shining his torch through it. I stand next to him and subconsciously take a step to be more behind him. Something about that fence gives me the chills…maybe it's all the dolls. I don’t think I would’ve ever liked dolls if I had any. 

Thomas kneels down as he spots bedding inside the chain link fence; it’s as if someone was sleeping in there. But why?

I hear a loud click noise from behind us followed by the whirring of machines. Thomas whips around and stands up, startling me by his sudden movement.

“Hey, Minho. Wait!” Thomas yells out. Minho turns around as all the lights start to flicker on. Minho smiles for a moment before it quickly fades as he looks at something behind Thomas and I. 

“Cassie, Thomas, watch out!” he shouts out. We both whip around and come face to face with a figure slamming into the fence. I scream as I scramble backwards, my heart pounding in my chest. We all stumble back a few more steps, Thomas and Minho shoving me behind them. 

“Her eyes!” Minho exclaims as we look at the rabid person on the other side of the fence that I’m sure was a woman at one time but now looks like a rabid animal.

Her skin is a pale white underneath the black veins that crawl over her face followed by black liquid that is coming out of her mouth. Her blonde hair has been ripped out in places and her eyes are completely gouged out. 

Forget what I said about the creepy doll fence…this is much, much worse. 

We hear clattering behind us and whip around to see another zombie person stumbling out of the shadows, his head hanging at a strange angle. 

“Stay back!” Thomas shouts as he grips my arm tightly and makes sure that I’m behind him. Minho grabs a metal pole that was lying on the ground next to him and holds it in front of himself as the other zombie runs towards us with startling speed. 

Minho steps forward and whacks it in the head, making it collapse to the ground. Thomas and I jump over its withering figure to get on the same side as Minho. 

“What on earth is that thing?” Minho exclaims as he watches it. More banging in the distance startles us into action again. 

“Come on, we gotta go,” Thomas exclaims as we run down the hall and towards the doors we entered through. On the other side of the hall, multiple more zombie people start to run towards us. 

Thomas grips my arm tighter as I tighten a hand around my wound that is bleeding through the makeshift bandages. The zombies are right on our heels now as we crash through the doors. Minho and Thomas turn around and quickly barricade the door shut with a metal locker as I gasp for breath.

We hear another crash from the room we’re in and see more zombies coming down one of the halls. 

“How many zombies are there?” I exclaim as Thomas grabs my arm and we run down a hallway in the opposite direction from the zombies. 

We dodge over empty boxes and dodge couches as we run before we make it to a pair of escalators that we run up. We’re running down a hallway now when I see the blue flashing lights of flashlights up ahead. 

“The others are just up ahead!” I gasp out as we continue running towards them.

“Hey, Hey! Run! Go!” Thomas shouts out to the others as they stand and watch us in confusion. The confusion quickly fades when they see the zombies that are on our heels. 

They finally seem to get what we’re saying as we run up to them and they quickly scramble for their bags of supplies before running with us.

“Thomas, Minho, what on earth are those things?” Newt yells out as we run up yet another pair of escalators. 

“I don’t know. Just keep going!” Thomas yells a reply as we make it up the escalators and run down a large hall section. I huff for breath as my chest burns from the lack of oxygen and my rapidly beating heart. 

“Where do we go?” someone, Winston I think, yells out as we come to a cross-section that is overrun with the zombies.

“Come on, keep moving!” Thomas leads us through a route that seems less zombie populated but we quickly stumble to a halt when a lone zombie walks out in front of us.

Everything seems to freeze for a moment as we all stare at the zombie with wide eyes before it charges towards us. Thomas pushes me behind him slightly as I let out a small gasp. 

I catch a movement in the corner of my eye and see Aris running forward, a metal pole in his hand. 

“Aris, no!” I yell out, echoed by the others. Aris runs towards the zombie and slides as he reaches it, kicking out its legs as he goes past it. The zombie falls to the ground with a loud thud but manages to crawl with lightning speed into us. 

Thomas grabs my arm tightly again as we jump to the side and onto a pair of escalators, our group splitting into two parts on either side of the zombie now. The zombie makes strange gurgling sounds as it rushes towards Thomas, Tessy and I. The others run around somewhere while Thomas quickly pushes me back. 

I hear another thud and look to the side to see a zombie standing on the bannister next to Tessy and one by Thomas. Thomas and Tessy manage to kick them off before we continue to run up the escalators. 

“Come on! Come on!” Thomas yells out to the others that are trying to catch up to us while having zombies on their heels. Thomas lets go of my arm suddenly and I jerk my head around to see him running back to Newt to help him against a zombie that knocked him down.

Minho notices as well and runs back to help Thomas kick the zombie through the glass bannister before helping Newt up. I look carefully into the distance as I hear the sound of footsteps, lots of footsteps. 

“Thomas, they’re coming!” I yell out when a whole horde of zombies comes into view. 

“Through here, through here!” Frypan calls out as he stands in front of an open gate. We run forwards and to the side, through the metal gate and into a narrow corridor, only wide enough to run single file. 

Thomas quickly pushes in front of me as we reach a metal door, frantically trying to get it open but it doesn’t budge. I heave for breath as my lungs feel close to collapsing now. 

The group continues to shout over each other now, some yelling that the zombies are getting closer, others telling us to hurry up. Thomas continues to push as hard as he can against the door in an attempt to open it as we hear the sound of a horde of zombies making their way towards us. 

Thomas leaves the door and we continue to run down the hall, coming into a bigger room that we spread out in. Thomas and Minho bang against all the doors but none of them budge…except for one. It doesn’t open fully but I think there’s a padlock or something keeping it closed.

“This one!” Thomas yells out to the others as Minho quickly runs to join him.
“Okay, okay. Minho!” Thomas shouts out as they both run forward and start to kick the door in, trying to break whatever lock is keeping it closed.

“I’ll hold them back,” I hear someone say. Winston. Oh, no. I whip around in time to see him grabbing a gun out of his holster, the gun he took off of that guard at WICKED, and point it at the horde of zombies as he starts to fire rapidly. 

“Get that door open!” He yells back to Thomas and Minho as he continues to fire but more and more zombies continue coming. I hear a loud thud and turn to Thomas to see Frypan has managed to knock in the door.

“Everyone through!” Minho I think, shouts at us as Thomas grabs my arm and rushes me through the door. He does that a lot. I wonder if it’s because he doesn’t want to lose me again like they did at WICKED.

We all barrel through the door and Thomas passes me to Minho as he rushes back to help Winston. He grabs Winston but is too late to pull him to safety as a zombie runs forward and knocks Winston to the ground as it grabs his legs. 

Winston screams out and my breathing gets even faster but not because I'm out of breath this time.

“Winston!” we all yell out as Minho pushes me back slightly before he, Newt and Thomas all run forward to help Winston who is currently being dragged by the zombies through one of the doors we came in through. 

“Help! Help me!” Winston cries out as Thomas and Newt grab his arms while Minho tries to keep the door shut. Frypan also runs forward and helps Minho to keep the door shut. Winston cries out in pain as he is finally pulled free and the door is slammed shut. I rush forward and kneel beside him, taking a look at the large scratches on his stomach.

“Hey, hey. You’re going to be okay,” I whisper to him in comfort as Newt and Frypan lift him up. I hear more loud commotion behind us and see that the door has managed to open again. Minho and Thomas are now the only things keeping the horde of zombies out. 

“Go, go!” Thomas yells to us and we quickly run back to the others. We run through the car park as fast as we can considering Winston is barely awake and my side is now profusely bleeding again. 

I spot the others up ahead and they call for us to hide behind a large pile of rubble that they have all hidden behind. We run the final stretch, the zombies not far behind us, and finally manage to drop behind the large cement blocks. 

Thomas runs in and joins us as we all huddle together and turn off our flashlights. The only sound that can be heard is our rapid breaths and the zombie’s gurgling from above us.

We spend most of the night like that till the zombies calm down and head off to wherever they were hiding again. Quietly, we crawl out of the rubble and finally out of the building, exhausting seeping into all of our bones as the adrenaline has long faded away. 

“We’ll stop here for the night, I’ll keep watch,” Thomas calls to us as we find another pile of rubble to hide under. 

Thomas passes me his backpack which I gratefully take and use as a pillow as we all drift off to sleep. I guess Janson was wrong, we’ve officially survived one day in the scorch.

(2450 words)