GladerWolf 2 (Newt X Female!Reader)

Piles of Rubble

We climbed up a hill of twisted wire and crumbled stone. I cut myself on the many sharp edges at least three times. I took another look at the wasteland around us: cars left isolated on a highway with many of their windows smashed in. Tall buildings that appeared to be the very pictures of decay itself. I thought they might crumble to the ground at any second, joining the debris-covered sand.

We made our way up a steep dune. I closed my eyes and covered my mouth where I could - I didn't want sand getting in. We looked out across the sand-filled city: an arid landscape and a dull blue sky for as far as the eye could see. I could smell no living thing besides us for miles. And someone among us didn't smell quite healthy, either.
Winston had been falling behind for the past twenty minutes: struggling to keep up and struggling to breathe. We'd asked if he was all right on multiple occasions, but he'd just told us to keep going.

Thomas pointed into the distance. "There's mountains, that's gotta be it," he said. His brown eyes were squinted against the sun. "That's where we're going."

"That's a long way off," Newt responded.

"We'd better get moving," Thomas decided. We took a step forward, and then it happened: Winston fell down the dune and brought a pile of sand up with him. We all rushed to him to stop him from falling any further and looked at each other, as if one of us would have the answer. None of us did.

Using our coats and poles that had been left around, we strapped together a stretcher to pull him on. Minho and Frypan pulled the front diligently, and Faelan supported the back by himself. He'd insisted on it, though sweat lined his brow thicker than the rest of us. It was too hot, much too hot.

~

We had been walking for at least half an hour, and strong winds whirled sand into our faces. Newt hugged me to his chest as we walked to keep me sheltered from it. "You're all right, you're all right," he said to me, his soft voice offering assurance.

At long last, we reached a point when everyone decided it was time to stop and rest, and we sat in the small shade provided by a collapsed piece of debris. Thomas and Teresa moved up ahead to talk. "How's it lookin'?" Newt asked as he leaned against the stone.

"Just a little further," Thomas replied.

"That's not very convincing," he said to me.

Faelan chuckled. "He's the alpha, we listen to him, right?" I nodded. "He's trying to give us hope, but he's struggling to have hope himself, and Winston..."

"What about Winston?" Minho asked.

"Can't you tell?" Faelan asked.

"Faelan," Newt warned.

"He has the Flare," he said anyway.

We heard Frypan talking, and then the sound of a gunshot echoed through my head. What was that? Thomas and Teresa ran over to us. "Gimme that," Frypan instructed.

"What happened?" Thomas asked.

"I don't know!" Frypan exclaimed. "He just woke up, and grabbed the gun, and tried to..."

"Winston, you okay?" Thomas asked. Winston was doubled over. He started coughing blood onto the sand. It was black. He moved to lie on his back, panting.

"It's... growing." He lifted his shirt to reveal a mass of dying veins and flesh. Faelan had been right: and that was the scent of decay I'd picked up. Winston was infected. "I'm not gonna make it," he managed to say. He reached for the gun in Frypan's hand. "Please, please, don't let me turn into one of those."

Nobody moved. Newt stepped forward to take the pistol from Frypan, and then knelt beside Winston. "Newt," Thomas said. But it wasn't his choice. Newt placed the gun in Winston's hand and stayed behind him.

"Thank you," Winston said. "Now... get out of here."

"Goodbye, Winston," Newt said quietly, before slowly standing up and - without another word - picked up one of our rucksacks and walked up the dune.

"I'm so sorry," I said to Winston. He nodded. I followed after Newt. There wasn't any point in asking if he was okay - he wasn't. There was no point in saying we would be okay either: at this point, it wouldn't mean anything.

As the remaining eight of us walked along the dune, we heard a single gunshot. We all stopped, taking a moment to silently pay our respects.

~

"I thought we were supposed to be immune," Minho said. We were all sitting around a makeshift fire as the sun set. The golden glow glinted in my eyes.

"Not all of us, I guess," Teresa responded from where she was lying.

"If Winston can get infected, we should assume so can the rest of us," Newt said. He stared into the fire.

"I never thought I'd say it," Frypan began, a tear rolling down his cheek, "but I miss the Glade."
And I missed Gally.

At the crack of dawn, we started moving again. And we were fast running out of supplies. That night, we were woken by Thomas. "It's lights," he said.

"We made it," I breathed. But the air smelled strange and there was something off about the clouds. And then we saw it: a bolt of lightning and a crash of thunder. "RUN!"

It was an exhilarating feeling, but truly terrifying. The boys and I didn't have time to shift into our wolf forms. There was a bolt of lightning way too close to us, and Minho was knocked flying into the ground. Faelan and Thomas lifted him and we hurried into the cover of a building. "It smells decayed in here, too," I said.

"What happened?" Minho asked as he tried to regain full consciousness.

"Dude, you got struck by lightning," Frypan responded.

"Oh," he responded daftly. We laughed, relieved that he was okay. It had been a long time since we'd laughed. It was nice to hear.

We shone our torches, only to be screeched and clawed at by Flare-infected people. To think that this was what Winston would have become hurt my heart. He didn't deserve this: none of us did.

"I see you've met our guard dogs." A woman said as she approached us. She had short brown hair and wore mismatched clothes that looked as though they'd been found. She did not smell decayed at all. She took a good look at us. "You guys look like crap. Come with me."

An actual person!?

Author's Note

Thank you for reading! I'm no longer going to be writing a chapter analysis, but you are welcome to comment your thoughts!