Wastelands → Newt [Movie Trilogy]

18 → "LIGHTNING STORM"

They'd been walking for hours. After losing Winston, who'd become infected by that virus — the Flare — they had walked, then stopped for the night. The next morning, they continued on. They refused to stop and rest in the day. They wanted to keep going. To get to those mountains. As a way to cope with the loss of their friend. Adeline was lugging herself along alongside Newt and Aris, nobody uttering a word of complaint about the blazing sun that was beating down on their backs. That was causing Adeline to feel agitated, irritable. She was sweating profusely through her shirt. She'd taken off her jacket that she'd found back at the abandoned mall — before everything happened. Before Winston got infected.

As they lugged themselves through the Scorch, Minho tossed his water bottle in frustration; he muttered something about how useless it was, being empty. Nobody had any energy to stop him, to scold him. Not like they had anywhere to stop and refill it. Finally, once the sun dipped below the horizon, they decided to call it a night with walking and stopped to rest. They dropped their packs on the ground. Adeline pulls on her coat, drops to her knees, falling onto her back, chest heaving in and out in exhaustion. Newt drops to his, rests his hand on her arm. The group begin to give in to the idea of sleep, relieved mostly. Newt drops onto his back, before curling up to his side. Adeline rolls over onto her side, facing him. Everyone else has curled up on the ground by this point.

"G'night, shanks." Minho bids. The group gives tired grumbles of complaint at the Runner, before many tiredly drift to sleep.

—

Sometime in the night, Adeline is woken up to a strained voice. Her eyes snap open, where she finds Thomas staggering to his knees, coughing, spluttering, trying to find his voice. He finally gets out the right words, Adeline grumbling at him for waking her up.

"Thomas." she grumbles, turning on her side to try fall back asleep. But, the boy starts screaming at them to wake up.

"Hey - hey! Get up!" Thomas orders — smacking Newt's leg, waking the blond up. "Newt, get up! C'mon! Get up! Frypan! Aris! Adeline! I see something."

"W — what is it?" Newt grumbles, jolting forward, staggering to his feet groggily. Adeline has sat upright by this point, yawning, combing her fingers through her hair, before getting to her feet. She rubs her eyes tiredly, mentally staring daggers at the boy for waking all of them up.

"See that?" Thomas points ahead, where Adeline wakes up a little more to realise what the boy is referring to. "It's lights. We made it."

Lights. That meant people. Civilization, maybe. Hopefully.

But, as soon as the realization occurs, thunder booms, causing the group to spin on their heels behind them. Lightning flashes in the distance, and dark clouds hang above. Then, more lightning strikes. Thomas motions for them to get going.