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writingsbychlo · 4 years

Text

feels like loneliness (05)

word count; 13,637

summary; surviving teh scorch is hard, but surviving the scorch while trying to sift through your own broken mind to remember who you are is even harder.

notes; one of the longest parts, and it may not turn out the way you expect, but you’re going to like it nonetheless, I’m sure of it!

warnings; reference to injury, general angst.

“didn't mean to be charming, such a beautiful darling”

Jolting awake, your hands flew out around you, grasping at the sand and the stone, your eyes sliding closed as you took deep breaths, calming yourself. The panic that had filled your system began to settle, and you waved away the birds that were hanging around the bags, picking through and scrounging for leftover crumbs of food.

Now that the morning had begun to seep in, you were finally able to see what had become of the world. The ‘cranks’ that had been following you had long since dispersed, and you leaned forward, running your hands through your hair and letting out a shaky breath. The body beside you twisted, and you glanced over your shoulder, Thomas’ eyes just beginning to crack open.

For a second, everything was calm, he was still as his eyes adjusted to the light, before he remembered where he was. Snapping upright, a worried look took over his features, banishing the calm look he had held before as he scrambled up to his feet noisily, glancing around, spinning in circles as he surveyed their environment.

“Are they gone?” You turned your focus directed on Newt as he rubbed at his eyes and you nodded, reassuring him it was okay.

“Yeah, I think we’re safe for now.” Thomas was already preparing to move, hands on his bag as he repacked what the birds had pulled out, before slinging it up onto his shoulder. Your body was still sore and aching, the effects of whatever medicine they’d had you on to keep you unconscious had only just been wearing off when you had all had to run for your lives, and that sudden exertion was catching up to you.

One by one, the group around you began to stand up, and you stretched your legs out from you had puled them to your chest. Wiggling the tiredness from the limbs, you leaned forward, attempting to touch your toes as you stretched out your body, waking up sleeping muscles. Eventually, you clambered to your feet yourself, adjusting the straps of your bag to fit tighter to your shoulders.

Thomas was rallying everyone, and you caught sight of Winston, hand clutched to his core as he sat up slowly, the purple and red of the blood that was seeping through his bandages was an ugly enough sight as it was. You stepped forward, offering the boy your hands and pulling him to his feet, a mumbled thank you falling from his lips as he steadied himself on his legs, pain radiating across his body as he winced.

“Hey, you carried me when I couldn’t walk. I’ve got you.” Your gesture was greatly appreciated as Thomas set off at the front of the group, his gaze barely meeting yours before he was turning away, beginning to lead the climb up the pile of rubble. The sun was already boiling hot overhead, and you knew it would only get hotter, the light shining directly into your eyes as the two of you navigated the rubble stack, following the path of the others.

His arm dropped from around your shoulder as you reached flat ground, and when you looked up, you couldn’t help but let your jaw drop at the sight. Buildings for as far as you could see, most taller than the walls that had surrounded the maze, but all crumbled and broken, mere skeletons of the marvels that they must’ve been.

Hopping down from the wall, your feet hit solid ground, the dirt beneath your feet dried and crumbling, but it wasn’t sand, and you were grateful for that. Cars, debris, glass and discarded belongings lined the streets, as you navigated side to side, weaving between places where the path was blocked and you could get through. Minutes passed as everybody took in what they were seeing before chatter could even break out, and even then, it was all in pure wonderment of what could have happened to this place.

It was long abandoned, that you could tell simply from looking at it. The thick layers of dirt and the lack of tracks, the eerily calm way everything sat in this broken city all gave it away. You were the first people to walk here for a while, and probably would be for a long while more.

You weren’t sure was it was, for a second, it sounded like the wings of the flies that would buzz a little to close to your ears in the summer back in the maze. You were sure you’d made it up, but as you listened carefully, it only seemed to come more and more into focus, your feet stopping as you tried to place what it was you were hearing in this desolate location. “Woah, woah, wait. Stop.” Your voice rang out clearly, the dragged sound of footsteps stopping as each member progressively turned to look back at you, eyebrows raised.

You looked up, eyes connecting with the wide honey brown ones that were watching you intently and you raised a finger, pointing upwards, outwards, to wherever the sound was coming from. “You don’t hear that?”

Their eyes left yours as they listened, the humming only getting louder, and for a second, you panicked, thinking maybe you were just hearing things. Perhaps, none of this had been real in the first place, and you were still in that lab, a dream of being rescued that you had invented to keep yourself sane. Before you could spiral too far, the humming got louder, and clearer, identifiable now as the same sounds the helicopters had made when collecting you from your mazes in the first place.

“Get down! Everybody hide!” Waving his arms, Thomas seemed to realise what it was before you, and you dashed, ducking down to the floor and sliding under a chunk of concrete that was balanced up from the ground just as a huge, airborne carrier showed overhead, two helicopters escorting it as they surveyed the landscape in the new light. You waited, minutes passing as you listened, checking the silence really was utter quiet, before you emerged from your cover.

After that, the walk had once again taken up, this time in silence. The city panned out around you, the devastation only seeming to get worse the further you travelled, the buildings beginning to become more and more broken and decrepit. It was an hour, maybe more, the sun now nearing a high position in the sky by the time you had finally reached the edge. The more the life that had once exited had begun to fall apart, the trickier it became to navigate, and you couldn't help but notice the struggle Winston was beginning to have with climbing.

He was pale and flushed, sweat running along his face, an abnormal amount even for the heat you were in and the exercise you were all doing. His skin was almost a sickly green colour, and he was clutching at his stomach. You waited at the top, your hand held out for him to pull him up the rest of the way.

Sand dunes were once again rising up to block the horizon, the powder hills returning as your form of terrain, a muttered curse under your breath drawing a chuckle form the injured by beside you as you approached the bottom of the first, very steep looking sand mound. Lifting Winston’s arm, you tucked your self tightly underneath it as he gripped at your shoulder, giving you a nod in thanks as you began your trek upwards, following in the footholds your friends had already made ahead of you.

You were practically dragging the poor boy, his breathing becoming laboured and raspy. He was swaying with each footstep, his eyes hooded and almost closed as he tried to push on, and you knew he wouldn't make it much further. The rest had already reached the top, Minho pointing out the mountains as they looked off into the distance, and you were grateful for their pause, your own energy dwindling as you tried to lift both yourself and the boy clinging to you to meet them. “Just a little further, Winston.”

You barely received any response, his mumble so slurred it sounded more like a groan, then again, perhaps it was. Your eyes were just beginning to be able to see over the top as Newt pointed out just how far you still had to travel to get to the mountains, vast open land between you and your destination, miles and miles, too many to even estimate.

His arm was just slipping from your shoulder as you finally came to a stop, grateful for a break when he tumbled forwards, grabbing out for your support as he fell. His arm, still half around you gripped you tightly, taking you with him and throwing you down the hill as you fell, a scream leaving your lips when your ankles twisted under you. He slid, barely a few feet from the group as he’d fallen face first, but the impact of his fall had sent you rolling aggressively towards the solid land at the bottom, and your hand cracked loudly as you hit the solid earth at the bottom, a cry tearing from your lips as you rolled onto your back.

The group sprung into action, diving towards Winston as he spasmed and coughed in the sand, rolling him over onto his back to try and help him. Thomas watched as you rolled onto your back, frozen in his spot, but the unhealthy noises his friend was making snapped his attention away from you, only for a second.

In his hesitation, his blonde friend had gone skidding down the sand, dropping to his knees beside you and blocking you from Thomas’ view. Newt, kneeling over you, a concerned look on his face, eyes wide as he watched you clutch your hand to your chest. “Quite the fall you took there, love? You alright?”

You nodded, gritting your teeth as you let the hand fall, the limb shaking as you put all your weight on your other to pull yourself to your feet, and he held your good arm carefully, helping you up. His eyes were narrowed in your wrist, however, almost as though he could sense the dull throbbing and intense pain in it. “It’s fine. I’m fine, only a little tumble.”

His eyes came up to meet yours, narrowing in on you. “You know, I think you’re right. I may not remember our friendship, but I know we must’ve been best friends, because I can tell you’re lying to me right now.” You sighed, dropping your head and he placed his hand on your elbow, avoiding the area that must’ve hurt as you let yourself hold it gently. “Trust me, I know what it’s like to land on a limb wrong.” Your gaze dropped to his leg momentarily, a frown taking over your features, and you couldn't pretend like you hadn’t noticed his newly acquired limp, swallowing thickly as you pushed away the thoughts of how that could’ve happened to him. “Let me see it.”

Tugging up your sleeve, you showed him the exposed skin, and he held his hands out, gesturing to it carefully. Taking your hand in his, he ran a finger over the skin, pressing just barely in some places, acknowledging when you hissed or winced in pain. “It’s really not that bad, Newt.”

“It really is.” His insistence had you rolling your eyes, and he caught you doing so, a small smile on his lips as he shook his head, reaching into his bag for the rolls of bandages he had managed to pack. “That’s going to swell up pretty nasty. Let me wrap it tightly now, it’ll help, and it’ll keep the swelling down. Shouldn’t hurt as much.”

You nodded, you knew he was right, it was already starting to show signs of discolouration as the joint began to increase in size, the pain worsening and you bit down on your tongue, eyes squeezed shut as he pulled the bandages tight, apologies falling from his lips as your eyes watered.

“You can scream, you know, or shout or cry. Wouldn’t blame ya’, pretty bad sprain you got here.” You shook your head, eyes opening as he tied up the knots, and you pulled your jacket sleeve back down over it to cover it. “You can feel pain, you know. It’s okay. You’re only human.”

Before you could reply, Thomas was skidding down the hill to stand before you both as Newt tucked the bandages back into his bag. “Are you okay?” Thomas’ hand reached out to your shoulder, a few of the others coming down as they began looking through the scrap and debris around you, searching for something.

“She spr-”

“Totally fine. Looked worse than it was. Not a scratch.” You beamed, tucking your hand into your pocket to hide the bandage that was up over your palm and over your thumb. Newt’s glare turned to you, the scorching intensity of it burning into your skull but he kept quiet as you reassured Thomas, sending him off to find the parts he’d explained to you they were looking for.

“You know he’s going to go insane when he finds out.” Newt jibed, a knowing look on his features as you shrugged your shoulders, taking steps towards the group to help out as he followed in your wake.

“Then we just won’t tell him. What he doesn’t know can’t hurt him.” Newt sighed, an angry edge to it as he looked at you but he gave in, and your shoulders sagged at the defeated look he carried. “I don’t want to lie to him, but don’t you think he’s got enough to worry about right now? We all do. Tell me he wouldn’t become overly protective because of this.”

You waved your shoulder, your hand still tucked firmly in your pocket and Newt groaned as he realised you were right, a stubborn look on his face. “I don’t like this. You seem far too casual about your injury.”

“Because it’s not that bad.” You practically sang the words, smirking at him as he mumbled disagreements and empty insults about how it was just his luck that he would make friends with the two most stubborn people on the surface of the ruined planet.

By the time you’d made it over to the shade that the group had found and carried Winston into, the poorly built stretcher they had built for the boy was finally complete, and they were lifting Winston onto it carefully. He was entirely unconscious, coughing and wheezing in his sleep as he struggled to breathe.

“We can take turns dragging it, until he’s feeling better.” Minho muttered, hand grabbing one side as he looked around. “I’ll go first. Who’s getting the other side?”

“I will.” You offered, barely taking a step forwards before Newt’s hand locked around your elbow, pulling you back and you whimpered underneath your breath as your hand was jostled, your body flying back to the original spot.

“No. You won’t.” All eyes were on Newt, including Thomas’, his eyes narrowing as they looked at the blonde. “She’s too short, it would make for uneven carrying. She should go when Teresa does, they’re closer in height and will walk at the same speed.”

You had to admit, you were impressed with the lie he had come up with so quickly, and Frypan had jumped in instead, taking up the place with Minho as you once again all began the walk. Honey brown eyes stayed glued to you for a few moments longer, scanning over your body before he looked away, continuing to lead the group from the front, and you let out a sigh of relief.

You had been walking for miles when eventually, you’d reached the destroyed wreckage of what clearly used to be a bridge, a large one at that. Some of the structure was still standing, marking out the territory around it. Looking along the flat riverbed, it was hard to picture that there had ever been water here, especially not enough to merit a structure of that size, just the thought alone had you swallowing thickly on a dry and scratchy throat.

The wind around you was slowly picking up. It had begun as a dull whistling, just enough to actually provide somewhat of a breeze as it carried the heat away. The further you got, the more intense it seemed to get, shifting into full-blown howling as sand was lifted and carried in clouds, scratching and scraping at your face. You had twisted the scarf that had been hanging around your neck to cover your mouth, but you could barely see ahead of you at this point, the dry storm rolling on calling for you to stop.

You didn’t have to travel far before more pieces of the bridge, unearthed from the sand came into view, providing a reasonable amount of shade for you to rest in, the sun reaching it’s highest point in the sky, the sand storm only getting worse and you all needed to take a break.

Setting the handmade device carrying Winston down onto the ground, both Minho and frypan collapsed in exhaustion, sitting with their backs to the rock and letting loose sounds of relief as they relaxed, the cooler surface bringing them some relief. Newt followed suit, pulling a half-full canteen of water from his bag as he leaned over the injured boy, trying to get some fluids into him.

A hand on your shoulder caught your attention, and you turned, Aris holding out his own drink to you with a smile and you took it from him, taking just enough of the water to quench your thirst, making sure none was going to waste as you licked over your lips, relieved to have had a drink. “I never got to thank you, A.”

“For what?” His sweet southern accent sounded in your ears as he wrapped an arm around your shoulder, guiding you to sit with him in a little corner, sheltered from the harsh winds around you.

“For coming back for me. You saved my life, Aris. I know there were others in there from our maze, and I know it had to be hard for you to leave them. Thank you.” The boy turned to look at you, eyes searching yours and you sighed, settling your head back onto the rock, eyes slipping shut.

“You remember my first day in the maze?” You laughed quietly at the memory, nodding as the images came back vividly. “I was so scared. You girls are god damn terrifying, and then I had to meet the ‘legend that was’,” he teased, voice changing as he mimicked how you’d been represented. “-the scariest part of that day was waiting for you to get back from your run. I’d heard so much about you by then already. Horror stories from the other girls, the girl who defied death, the girl who fought monsters and won. I swear someone even called you the commander of death.”

“Yeah, they have a flair for the dramatics, it used to knock people in line. I hated it. It was pure chance that I survived that place overnight, I crawled under a rock and passed out from injuries. Woke up and smacked my head on the rock above me. Had a bump the size of an egg for a week!” You joked, loud laughs coming from him as he pictured it.

“Yeah, well, there you were. And to be fair, you did look scary. You had a knife strapped to your back and an angry look on your face and I was certain you were going to kill me. But then, you smiled, and you asked me if I wanted to go for a walk with you. You told me everything was going to be okay, and you actually made me believe it.”

You tilted your head to look at him, smiling softly as you recalled the memory, never having known he’d felt that way on his side of it. “I’m sorry that turned out to be a lie.”

“It didn’t. I saved you, and so I know you’ll continue to keep me safe, you’ll figure it out, just like you did in our maze, and just like you did the night you got trapped. You’ll survive it. You saved my life getting me out of that trap. There was no way I was leaving you behind back there.” You nodded at him, no more words needing to be said as you both settled in, eyes closing as you waited out the storm.

You awoke to the sound of a gunshot, your body lunging and you reached out, falling awkwardly on your hand as you tried to steady yourself, pain shooting up to your shoulder. Fighting and scrabbling was taking place over Winston’s body, the boy wrestling with the others even from his stretcher and you looked around, Thomas and Teresa dashing back down from the top of a hill, your eyes narrowing slightly as you watched them.

Making your way to Winston, he had released his grip on the gun, now on his hands and knees, as he coughed up blood, the black and gloopy mess spilling from his mouth in reams and you covered your both as you looked, a chill sweeping across your body at the realisation of what was happening.

The others had backed away, and you pushed to the front, the bandages he’d worn had long since been stripped off by him, sitting in a pile tot he side of him ad he turned on his back. Lifting his shirt up, he revealed the growing mess to you all. Chunks of skin had started to fall away, making it look as though the purple and black skin was rotting away, which it most likely was. Blue veins crawled angrily along his skin, the colour sickly pale in shades of greens and grey as it spread up his torso as far as you could see, and down along the rest of his body, even his hands were trembling, the veins beginning to darken, and you weren’t sure how you had missed the ones poking out from under the hemline of his shirt and along his neck.

“I'm not going to make it.” The words were no surprise given his current state, but hearing them be said out loud, having been forced to face the truth was a different concept entirely, and the lump forming in your throat was only getting bigger as he motioned his hand to the gun. “Please, don’t let me turn into one of those things.”

Newt stepped forwards when nobody else moved, and you wanted to reach out for the boy, but chose to wait as he built up the courage to do what had to be done. It was as you watched the way Newt took the gun, placing it in his friends hand and simply wishing him a final farewell that you finally realised why Newt had been the only one to be able to do it, and more so, why Newt had the disability he hadn’t had when you’d been parted all those years ago. Newt understood, what it was like to lose hope, to have no other escape.

You kneeled, beside him, pulling his free hand into yours as you smiled at him, nodding and squeezing his hand. There wasn’t much you could say, but the others were still in shock, and when you looked out to Newt, his shoulders were already shaking, back turned to you as he walked away.

Sharing a look with Aris, you dashed after him, your body rounding his as you rested your hand on his arm, his watery gaze lifting from the sand to see yours as tears leaked down his cheeks, fresh trails washing away the dirt that had built up on his skin. You’d barely even opened your arms for him before he’d collapsed into them, holding onto you tightly as he pressed his face into your neck, letting out a shuddering sob.

The group were each saying their goodbyes, one by one walking away, towards you both, and Newt pulled back, wiping a dirty hand over his cheek to clear his eyes as he calmed himself, taking a deep breath and beginning to lead the way. The group trudged on, and you stood, waiting at the top of the hill as you watched Thomas talk to the boy, his head bowed low when he finally left, hands coming up to rub at his eyes occasionally as he followed the tracks.

“Hey..” Your voice seemed to shock him, his gaze snapping up, hot tears leaking along his cheeks as he glanced between you and the retreating group. Seeing him in this state, the same broken look on his face he’d worn the day he’d sent you away, your own heart broke, eyes watering as you watched him. His direction altered, taking quick steps towards you until his body was inches away from yours, your good hand coming up to cup his cheek gently.

Wiping away the tears, he leaned into your palm, sniffling back his emotions as he let his eyes close for a second, simply relaxing into your touch, letting himself slip away from the horrors of the world, even if only for a moment. Your touch dropped from his face as his hand came up to pull it away, his fingers linking through yours as he guided you along in trail of the rest.

When the sadly anticipated gunshot rang out, his body froze, hand tightening around yours, and you squeezed back to reassure him, his head dropping form the horizon to look at his shoes, blinking away fresh tears when the others had only just dried. Taking a look at you, he took a deep breath, nodding, before continuing on with the walk.

It had been silent for hours, nobody really too sure what to say. What could be said? You were shaken by the incident and you had only known the boy for a day. You could only imagine the pain the others were in, having known him for years, classing him as a close friend, if not family.

The first words to be spoken in hours were by Frypan, saying it was getting darker and colder, quickly, and they should find somewhere safe to settle down for the night. It wasn’t hard, the ground had begun to flatten out into layers of cracked and burnt earth, flat for as far as the eye could see, so spotting somewhere to camp hadn’t been a struggle.

You had settled on a turned over ship, the rusty old vehicle creating a large wall to protect you from any threats and from the elements. Plenty of materials were lying around, dried out and long since past any use other than firewood, and the group worked silently to build up somewhere to sit a fire roaring before you as you stared into the flames.

Your hand had become a permanent home for Thomas’, the boy yet to let go of it yet. His palm was warm, heat trapped between you both, and as everyone began to settle down, he scoped out the possible options, his eyes locking onto a spot he liked, his eyes finding yours as his head tilted in that direction, the question finding you without words needing to be spoken.

The sky was fading into shades of blues and purples as stars began to twinkle, barely visible, but getting brighter and brighter as the light from the sun slipped away. For the first time in hours, Thomas’ hand left yours, his bag sliding down his arms and being dropped to the floor, his body soon following as he collapsed into the dirt.

You let your back meet the shipping container, leaning against it as you slowly slid to the floor, using it for support as you used the one hand to cushion yourself hitting the ground. Settling in, your shuffled side to side, before Thomas’ hand was inching towards yours across the dirt.

“I thought we were supposed to be immune.” Your haze turned to Minho, his own vision locked on the flames before him, but there was an anger in his voice, angry that they had lost their friend to something he should supposedly have survived.

“Not all of us.” You squinted, eyebrows furrowing as you looked at Teresa, and she cleared her throat, not meeting anybody’s sceptical gazes from her words. “I guess.” You shook your head, the tips of Thomas’ fingers brushing against yours, and you flipped your hand over for him, his fingers immediately picking up your limp limb and drawing shapes into your skin to distract himself.

“If Winston can get infected, we should assume so can the rest of us.” Newt’s words brought a harsh reality over you all, a sombre and dark mood filling you all as you realised, another danger to you all had made itself apparent, just another reason to be terrified for your lives once again.

His finger stilled on your palm as Newt’s words settled in, and he chose instead to just weave your fingers together again, squeezing once, and you didn’t need to speak, simply squeezing back. Silence settled over you all, darkness creeping in as an orange glow took up reflecting on everyone’s skin, exposing the tears on their cheeks.

As the warmth began to die, you looked around, the bodies laying down, all silent and sleeping. Teresa had fallen asleep first, quickly followed by Frypan and Minho, both of whom were exhausted. Aris had done another run for firewood but had quickly fallen asleep in the new warmth. Thomas had lay down beside you, the boy having not stirred or moved beside you for hours, your fingers barely in his grasp anymore, and he looked so peaceful in this state.

The flames were dying down, and with still so long left of the night, you knew you couldn't afford to lose the heat, needing to keep it going. Your eyes connected with Newt’s across the dying embers, him clearly having the same thought. “I’ll grab some more stuff to throw on there.” He mumbled, and you shook your head, pulling your fingers free from Thomas’ hold gently.

“I’ve got it.” He was mentally, physically, and emotionally drained, the day having taken its toll on him. He gave you a grateful smile, snuggling back down into his seat and pulling his blanket back around his shoulders. You pushed some hair out of Thomas’ face, smoothing it back from his eyes, watching as he twitched slightly at your touch, but his eyes never opened, no signs of him being awake.

Hauling yourself to your feet, the further you wandered from the group the colder you got, pulling your jacket closer to your body as you tucked anything you thought could burn under your bad arm, using your good arm to collect and help you climb. When you returned, Newt reached out, taking some of the supplies from you and throwing them into the fire, the flames quickly growing again.

You were standing in silence, side by side as you looked over everyone when he finally turned to you. “You should let me look at that arm again, love. See how it’s doing.” Neither of you had noticed the brown-eyes boy that had cracked his eyes open to watch. You add to the fire. The truth was, he’d never been asleep at all, his mind being plagued by this world, and the possibility of losing you again, having gotten you back for such a short period of time before something tore you away from him once again.

He watched as your arm slipped from your coat pocket, the same place it had been since the beginning of the day, but he thought you’d just been comfortable that way. As you held your trembling hand out to his British friend and flipped your palm over, he could see the large knot tied in the bandages wrapped around your arm. Your other hand had lifted your sleeve, the bandages covering from your palm to halfway up your forearm. Niftily undoing the knots, the wrapping fell away and there was no mistaking the angry purple colour of the skin, the way it was enflamed and swollen, even with the orange light casting shadows onto it.

“Can you move it at all? Make a fist for me?” You tried, squeezing your fingers in towards your palm, but you could barely shift them into a claw shape before a low cry was falling from your lips, and your head shook. Rustling caught both your and Newt’s attention, your focus shifting to the sound and you landed on Thomas, propping himself up on his hands as he looked at you, eyes wide with fear as his jaw trembled.

He was on his feet in seconds, dashing over to you as you tried to find words to explain, his hands reaching out to hold your arm as delicately as he could in his shaking grasp. His eyes were frantically running over your features as he searched you for any signs of danger. Newt smiled, ducking his head as he stepped away, choosing to lie down under his blanket and face away from the two of you, giving you the best privacy he could.

“When did this happen? What happened? Is it going to be li-”

You pressed a finger to his lips, shushing him lowly as you halted his words, his yes leaving your injured hand as he met your soft gaze. “It’s not a bite or a scratch. It’s not going to get infected.”

“Y-You’re sure?”

“I promise. It happened when Winston threw me. My arm got caught under me as I rolled and I landed on my wrist badly at the bottom.” His eyes widened marginally at your statement, eyebrows shooting up as his jaw dropped.

“You told me you weren’t hurt! You said you were okay!” His voice was higher, a tremble in it, fear with no disguise as he spoke.

“And I am. It’s okay, this is okay.” You took his chin between your fingers, guiding his face until he was looking at you. “I’m okay.” He swallowed thickly, blinking back his tears as he steadied himself, and you chuckled lowly. “Don’t cry for me, Tommy.”

He nodded, hands trembling as he looked around for his bag, pulling a roll of bandages from his and getting to work on slowly rewrapping your arm. You see the way he flinched every time you twitched or winced, stopping completely at any pained sounds you let out, but once it was completely wrapped, he lifted your hand to his mouth, gently kissing along your knuckles.

His sleeve slid down as he did so, and the fingers of your other hand reached up, brushing along the string of the charm on his wrist, and a huffed laugh fell from his lips as you traced the pendant. The first letter of your name, sitting in tattered and battered silver, but it only made you love it more, the wear and tear on the charm showing just how much you’d gone through to get back to one another.

It was at that point, that Thomas broke. Tears streamed down his face as he cried quietly, really cried, sobs shaking his body as he dropped to his knees, face burying in your stomach as his hands gripped at your hips, muffling the sounds he was making as he clung to you.

“I didn’t listen to you. I should have listened but I didn’t. You were right, I watched you be dragged from me, and I still didn’t realise. I could’ve stopped it all! I-I watched them take you away from me, wipe away your memories. I watched you die, and it was all my fault!” Sinking down, his forehead rested against yours, your eyes closed as you let him get his emotions out, until eventual his shaking calmed down, his breathing evening back out.

“I’m not dead, though, Tommy. I’m right here.” You took his hand from your waist, placing it on your cheek. “See, I’m right here.”

“I’m so sorry.”

You hushed him quietly, hand reaching under the edge of your top as you pulled out the hand-woven string, the shiny letter ‘T’ hanging on it as you showed it to him. “I forgave you a long time ago. You couldn’t have known. It was always going to end up this way.”

He sniffed, nodding his head as you whispered reassurances into his ear. His eyes connected with yours, and he leaned forward, pressing a tender kiss to your forehead as you begin to re-establish the boundaries between you, it having been so long since he’d last held you, touched you, felt you in his arms.

The flashes and dreams he had, had not done you justice, because as he lay down with you, your body pressed to his as he held onto your tightly, he had ever felt safer, and never felt more at home. The rhythm of your heartbeat was enough to lull him to sleep at last, the fire bringing him a fraction of the warmth you did as you settled into his embrace, eyes closing, finally shut for well-deserved rest.

When you had woken up, it had been to the pain spiking up to your shoulder from where you had rolled over onto your arm, the support of the boy who had been beside you having moved away. Rubbing at your eyes, you glanced about, the sun was only just beginning to peek up over the horizon and cast light out across the desert landscape, a sweeping coldness still very present in the air.

The fire had long since worn down, but it wasn’t worth creating a new one. The rest would undoubtedly be waking up soon and you’d be on your way. Everywhere around you was still and calm, and as you took in your surroundings, you realised not only Thomas was gone, but Teresa was too.

Her belongings were missing, as were Thomas’, neither of them anywhere to be seen and fear surged through your body at the thoughts beginning to flood in. Shuffling around quietly, your hand reached out, shaking Newt’s shoulder until he stirred, groaning in his sleep as he looked at you. “I always thought when I left the glade I wouldn’t be woken up at the crack of da-”

“Newt, stop. Thomas and Teresa are gone.” The boy shot up, suddenly awake as he heaved himself into a sitting position and he looked over at their spots taking note of their missing belongings. “I-I just woke up, and all their stuff is gone, I don’t know what to-”

“Don’t assume the worst, love, maybe they just went for a walk, or something.” He got to his feet in a hurry, though, and despite his comforting words his demeanour was rushed and nervous as he grabbed his things, pulling his own bag onto his back. Nudging his foot into the bottom of Minho’s back, the ex-runner grumbled loudly, swiping at Newt’s leg and mumbling threats about breaking his other one, but the blonde only proceeded to move on and wake Frypan.

Your hand landed on Aris’ arm, squeezing gently, and he opened his eyes to look at you, before glancing around at the environment. He was calm for a second, before the situation you were all in came rushing back to him, his relaxed features crumpling into passive despair as he came to his conclusion. “Time to get up, A, we have a long way to go.”

“Where’s Thomas?” Minho had been the first to notice, the boy retying the laces on his boots as he looked around got his friend. You looked to Newt, who only shrugged in response as he took a sip from his water bottle.

“We don’t know. Woke up this morning to him and Teresa gone. Can’t have gotten far, though, it’s only been a few hours and it was dark so th-” He cut himself off as hushed voices rounded the side of the boat, eyes locked as they mumbled to one another, shoulders pressed up against one another as they walked, keeping their hushed conversation as private as they could.

He had a small smile on his face as he spoke, the girl beside him nodding as she agreed, and it took them a good minute or two before they realised they were no longer the only ones awake. Their eyes moved over everybody else in the group, shocked looks on their faces as everybody was ready to go, already. Honey brown ones found yours and a blush rose to his cheeks, his jaw opening as he stepped away from Teresa, but you let the corners of your mouth pullup in a hint of a smile, before looking back to Aris, helping him to gather his things.

“Well, now that we know we don’t have to go on a manhunt for our missing people-” Newt jabbed his finger over his shoulder at the two who were making their way slowly towards you both, now a wide gap between their bodies, “-I say we get a move on. The more space we can cover before the sun rises, the less it’s going to suck. And it really is going to suck, because looking out there, I’m not seeing any shelter.”

“You’re so inspiring Newt, it’s incredible. Gosh, I just can’t wait!” You beamed, and he rolled his eyes, sticking his tongue out at you playfully. You finally swiped your own bag from the floor, swinging the straps over your shoulder as you lifted up to rub at your other shoulder, wincing as pain moved along the nerves and into your hand.

“Are you okay?” Your eyes left the sand, surprised you’d missed the sounds of him approaching and your eyes trailed over the moles on his cheeks, connecting them in a line before you finally let your eyes find his. Clearing your throat, you nodded, pulling your hand away from it and pushing it through the other strap, ignoring the burning pain in your body as you did.

“Fine, I just slept on it wrong, is all. Didn’t expect to roll over onto it in the night.” You could see the slight grimace on his face, and you could tell pain was written on your features like a book but you had moved your gaze from his, busying yourself with checking over everything and making sure you were ready.

“Teresa needed me this morning, otherwise I still would’ve been with you. I can carry your bag if yo-”

“I got it, don’t worry. We all have to pull our own weight around here, I can still do that.” His jaw clamped shut as he nodded, eyes running over your arm as he watched it hang limply by your side, fingers beginning to turn a purple colour as he could see the bruising and swelling spreading, but as you’d noticed his lingering gaze on your injury, you tucked your hand into your pocket to hide it from view.

The day had started out easy enough, you had covered maybe two miles of the vast expanse before the heat had really started to kick in as the sun rose higher. The pace after that, however, had slowed considerably. It was hard to even take steps, the air before you all twisting and contorting the landscape as air rose up from the burned ground. The throbbing in your hand seemed to have become normality for you by this point, many hours worth of pain dulling to become something you had grown accustomed to.

You had shifted your bag to hand from one arm, stripping your jacket off and wrapping the loose scarf you were carrying around your shoulders and face to protect your skin from the heat, but you were still barely conscious. Water had run out a while ago, nobody having any to share or distribute, and it seemed like you were all beginning to reach a point of being able to go no further.

Thomas hadn’t tried to talk to you, he hadn’t tried to approach you, not while you were all still walking. It wasn’t until the sun was beginning to set again that the first words of the day since that morning had been cracked at all, as Frypan knelt down to the hot ground, lamp pressed against it as he rocked back to sit on his legs. The air was still sweltering and hot, but it was no longer suffocating as it had been, and despite the aching in your feet, you trudged forward, a few more paces as you looked out at the mountainscape.

You felt his presence beside you before he announced it, his fingers timidly reaching out to brush against your palm, before he slid his hand into yours entirely. His fingers wrapped around yours, and your hand stayed flat, his face coming into your eye line as he came to stand in front of you, blocking your view of the mountains, that still seemed far too far away, despite how much progress you had made in that day.

“I’m sorry.” His voice was honest, and your eyebrows furrowed as you looked up to his eyes, already wide and looking down as you as his fingers squeezed against yours, trying to prompt you to hold his hand in return. “About before. I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you woke up, but Teresa needed me and-”

“I’m not mad at you, Thomas. I wasn’t jealous of you and Teresa.” His nodded, gaze never leaving yours as his mouth closed for a second, words being contemplated, but how couldn't seem to find the right ones to convey what he was trying to. “Look around us, Tommy. Look at the world we live in, and the people we’ve become. You think I don’t want to just run back into your arms, and pretend like everything that happened never did?”

“I know. I know what you’re trying to say, but we don’t have to let WCKD come between us-”

“WCKD already came between us, Tommy.” You cupped his cheek as his lip trembled, a sigh falling from your lips as your fingers finally wove around his, holding his hand in return. “It’s hard for me to love you, Thomas. Not because I don’t want to, but because the dreams of you were all that were getting me through. I could love you when you were safe, when you were just in my mind. I can’t love people that I might lose, because it’s too hard to say goodbye when I do.”

Twisting his head, he placed kisses to your palm, nodding as he took in your words. “This isn’t what love should be, is it?” You shook your head sadly, your heart tearing at his words. “Right now, I need you to survive. I know I did love you, and I will again, so you need to survive because when we get through this, I’m going to love you again.”

“It’s okay to be a kid, Thomas. To not know what you want, to let your feelings change. You don’t have to be their hero, and you don’t have to be what you think I want. You don’t have to be perfect. I’m not the same girl I was before, and I’m not sure you would want me as who I am now. I’m not the same innocent girl you’re remembering.” His eyes softened at your words, pitying you, and you could see the same pain reflecting back in his, because he had suffered just as much as you had. “You just have to do what you want to do, be who you want to be.” He stepped back from you slightly, nodding as your hand fell from his face and he held it gently, inspecting your injury.

“I want to be the person that gets to love you for the rest of your life. But first, I have to save everyone.” Letting your arm fall back to your side, he squeezed your hand in his, tugging you back towards the group, but you shook your head.

“I’m just going to watch out for a few more minutes, let myself think.” He nodded, asking you to come and join them soon, that you needed sleep, and you promised him you would, before looking back out onto the landscape. The aching in your heart only got worse as he took more and more steps from you, and your eyes found the horizon again.

You had lost so many people, you had so little left to hold onto, and it only seemed like letting someone into your heart was asking for it to be broken at some point. You were different people, you had different feelings and different lives than you used to, but that didn’t stop the fact that he felt like home when he held you, and that your heart was only beating for him.

When the air grew too cold to stand out any longer, you let your feet carry you over to the boy, his body lying awkwardly on his side on the hard floor as he faced you, eyes closed as he slept, arms crossed loosely. Lifting his arm up gently, you turned yourself on your side, gently draping his arm over your waist before tucking your functional hand under your head to act as a pillow.

His fingers splayed out over your stomach, grip on your tightening as he hummed in his sleep, shuffling until he was pressed up against you, warm breath on the back of your neck almost enough to lull you to sleep. You thought you had imagined it at first, a single light on the horizon being fat too good to be true, the faded twinkling being a mere fragment of your imagination as your eyes closed.

The thought was pestering you, though, and so after minutes of trying to quiet your thoughts you opened them again, just to prove yourself wrong as you looked out at the spot, expecting it to be dark and disappointing so you could finally sleep. Instead, another light had joined it, some brighter and some more faded, until a colony of them had built up, and you leaned up to get a better look,

You ignored the whining behind you, the arm squeezing your waist as you blinked, clearing your vision as you peered at the illuminated section at the base of the mountains. You hadn’t even seen them in the light, their faded and weather-worn exterior had camouflaged into the barren land around it that it had been invisible, but now, it was giving off just enough light to create shadows as the blurs of several buildings came into view.

“Thomas..” you waited, tapping at the back of his hand, and you were met with nothing but silence. “Thomas!” He hummed in his sleep, not bothering to open his eyes and you moved until you were sitting up properly. “Tommy, look!” With the shake you gave him, he groaned in his sleep, eyes opening to peer out at the spot you were pointing at, hooded and tired eyes soon snapping open fully as he saw what you were seeing.

Before he could speak, the silence around you was interrupted by a loud flash going across the sky, a deep and ominous rumbling following it seconds later. Twisting your heads, you watched the dark storm clouds rolling in on the night sky, blocking out the moon and the stars and more strikes of lightning and thunder began to hit down onto the flat earth, gaining ground closer and closer to you as the wind pushed them in.

He turned, smacking at Newt’s legs as his groggy voice shouted at them all to get up. The black clouds behind you were being lit up as the electricity within them grew stronger and stronger. “Look, lights.” They all looked out, Thomas pointing to it as relieved sighs began to leave everyone.

“We made it!”

The cracking of lightning cracking the ground, only a mile or so from where you were broke the joy, the familiar feeling of fear settling back into your system as sand and dust began to get swept up into the mix, twisting and turning with the harsh winds the storm was bringing with it. “Not yet we haven’t. We need to go!”

Patting his friends on the shoulders, the fell and stumbled as they scooped up their things, wobbly and still tired bodies carrying them as fast as they could towards the glowing buildings. The nearer you got, the closer the storm seemed to strike, the wind carrying it in faster than you could move, and you could feel yourself falling behind from the group, the exhaustion of still not having had any rest beginning to show as your feet slowed down beneath you.

Cars and scrap metal, discarded furniture and belongings surrounded you, empty canister and broken junk as you weaved between it, the walls of the first building getting closer and closer. Looking up at the sky, you cursed, the clouds overhead blue and flashing, the light getting stronger and brighter, before another burst of lightning was released.

You could practically feel the tingle in the air, the impact it let out winding you as chunks of rock and dirt flew up around you, your ears ringing from the sonic boom of thunder. Your vision was blurring, head spinning as your eyes locked onto Minho’s unconscious body, Thomas smacking at his ears to try and regain his sense as Frypan opened the door of the building, guiding everyone inside.

Smoke was still lifting from Minho’s singed skin as you hooked your hands under his arms, not bothering to hide the cry that the wind silenced for you as a sharp pain ran along your nerves. Pushing it down, you dragged him slowly, the load becoming easier as Thomas, who was still tumbling on his feet took over, helping you drag the boy inside as the others shouted out for you.

Dropping him to the floor carefully, the doors closed around you as they fumbled for a light, and you braced yourself against the wall, your mind beginning to shut down on you from fatigue. The stench in the room was knocking you sick, it smelt like rotting flesh and dead animals, vertigo kicking in as you clutched at your fragile stomach. Chains rattled around you as you became alert again, body twitching at the laboured groaning and wheezing of the living dead creatures that had once been people. The torch lights flashed around you dizzyingly as more and more of the creatures lunged at you, screams echoing from the group as they all closed in on themselves, huddling away from the beasts reaching for them.

“I see you’ve met our guard dogs.” It was a girls voice, not yours or Teresa’s, not one you recognised, and you located a figure standing in the doorway, as the opposite end of the room, a light having been flicked on. She made her way towards you all confidently, walking the path through the creatures as though she’d done it hundreds of times, never flinching as they reached out for her.

When she came into view, you took her in. Short hair sat cropped on the top of her head, her eyes wide as she looked over everyone. “Wow, you guys look like shit.” Her eyes had landed on you, propping yourself against the wall as she said it and you couldn’t stop the small smile that pulled at your lips, your head tilting in agreement to her statement. “Come with me.”

She had turned, walking backwards as you pushed yourself up from the wall, following after her. An arm shot out from the group as you neared them, Aris’ eyes meeting yours as he held you back, and you gently tugged your arm from his grasp. “Anything is better than being here with these things.” You motioned around, a slight wobble in your step as you followed after her, the group remaining unmoving for a second before Aris broke away to follow you, the rest trickling in their path as she continued to guide you all.

Their pace slowed as you all entered a warmly lit room, people filling every inch of it as a community of people all began to look at you as you walk past. Small tents had been set up, blankets diving the room up into different sections and your feet were dragging under you as you tried to keep yourself upright and awake. “Keep up. Jorge wants to meet you.”

You heard the scuffling of footsteps catching up with you at the front, Thomas pushing through until he was just behind the girl, your eyes finding the back of his head and using it as a focal point to keep yourself steady. “Um.. who’s Jorge?”

“You’ll see.” You could practically hear the smirk in her voice as she spoke. “Nobody has come out of the scorch in a long time. You’ve just got him curious.” She glanced back, her eyes finding your hand as you clutched it to your chest. “And me, too.” Hoards of people were following you now, adults mostly, but other kids, even some children all buzzing about as they looked at you, scanning over each of you to interpret you, and Newt mumbled something about a bad feeling, the words barely being processed once they reached your ears.

You weren’t sure how many more flights of stairs you could take, Aris’ hand finding your arm as you stopped at the bottom, looking up, and he threw an arm around your waist to help you climb. The chatter had already started by the time you reached the top, the tension thick and palpable, unease settling into you as you glanced around. You closed your eyes for one second, the sound of Thomas shouting and scrabbling bringing you back around to consciousness as you watched him be pushed to his knees, all of you being held back from advancing to help him as the girl lifted a device, a right light scanning over the back of his neck.

They exchanged words you didn’t understand, not until the phrase ‘WCKD’ fell from their lips and despite your exhaustion and lack of sleep, adrenaline surged your system at the mere mention of it. Hands wrapped around your arm, a cry falling from your lips as rough hands grabbed at your swollen wrist to drag you away.

“Easy, she’s injured.” The girl who had brought you in chastised the burly man who had laid his hands on you, his grip tightening momentarily as he glared at her, grunting. “WCKD isn’t going to want their property back if you bang it about too much.” She shrugged, and he barely acknowledged her, rolling his eyes before his grip loosened, and you were thrown upwards, over the man’s shoulder.

He seemed to expect more of a fight, his hands holding your ankles tightly, fingertips digging into your flesh, but you had no more fight to give. Your body was shutting down, and your arms dangled behind his back, swinging side to side nauseatingly as he carried you, and the ground beneath his feet blurred. You barely processed the feeling at all as you were dropped the ground harshly, the sounds in your ears as everyone fought back, or the strange way your body was moving as you were dragged by your feet.

When the ground finally fell away, the knots around your feet got tighter, your arms raising above your head, hair falling around your face as you dangled in the gap, looking down into the darkness of the many, many floors drop below you. Your name was being called out, hands on your face as your eyes rolled back, darkness finally surrounding you as you blacked out.

Your body was swinging when you woke up, you hands flying out to your sides to balance yourself, and you quickly released you were upside down, a yelp leaving your lips as you jolted against the rope holding you, spinning around with wide eyes to meet the gazes of everyone else. “What the hell is going on?”

You really couldn’t remember much after the lightning strikes, but your body was buzzing as you slowly swung to a halt, a few laughs leaving the group. “You only went and passed out, missed all the fun of an interrogation, love.” The boys were pushing Teresa, swinging her towards the balcony as she fell and you hummed, looking around yourself.

“You know, that might just be the best sleep I’ve had in years.” Thomas gaze met yours, questioning you as to whether you were really making jokes right now, and you shrugged as best you could, his lips twitching up in a small smile, before you all suddenly dropped another few metres into the gap. Teresa had made it, her hands undoing the rope around her ankles as she freed herself.

Reaching out, she pulled Thomas towards her, the boy barely free before lights shine through the windows, the unmistakable sound of the large WCKD transporters flying overhead, flood-light torches being shone through windows from helicopters, and Teresa was hunting from something to use to pull the others towards her.

Thomas had barely untangled his legs when the chilling voice of Jansen over the speakers sounded out, your stomach twisting in fear at the idea of going back, having made it so far away from that place, you were not willing to sacrifice it all now. She was reaching out, a stick held out to Newt to pull him towards the edge as Thomas reached out, and you reached out, grasping onto it as she pulled you towards her.

You dragged yourself up onto the ledge, Thomas crouching beside you as he swiftly undid the knots around your feet, hands held out to you as he lifted you up, holding you as you balanced yourself on your feet. Panicked screaming of the community in the rest of the building could be heard, fleeing, running, trying to escape, but before your group could do the same, one of the men who had helped tie you up was once again blocking your path.

The device in his hands clicked as he loaded it, the barrel of the gun gleaming in the light as it held a steady aim on you all, and Thomas held his hands up, backing you all up slightly as the thug advanced on you. “We’re not trying to cause any trouble, okay? We just gotta’ get out of here.”

“Is that so?” He smirked, flashing the gap in his teeth as he lifted the radio clutched in his hand to the side of his face. “Jansen, I got them. I’m bringing them down for ya’.” With a finger on the trigger, he motioned for you all to move, Thomas stepping forwards and pushing the weapon up and to the side, a round firing off into the darkness, and Thomas lifted his foot, kicking the man roughly in the stomach as he tumbled back.

Unfortunately, he’d caught himself, finger tight on the trigger as he snarled, anger seeping from every pore. A gunshot sounded, and you all jumped, waiting for the inevitable moment one of you would drop to the floor, but it never came. Instead, blood seeped through the shirt of the man who had been threatening you as the girl to first welcome you watched him fall, dropping her gun from where it was aimed at you and tucking it into her belt.

She reached for her back pocket, everyone stepping away as she pulled her hand back out and she held her arms up, flashing you all the material device in her hand. “You; arm out, quick.” She stepped towards you, hand coming out to grab at your hand as she lifted it up, pushing up the jacket sleeve roughly as you winced. It held the form of a hand, and she slid the solid material of the device onto your hand, your fingers slipping through each aligned hole and she fastened it tightly around your thumb, the pressure on your hand already relieving. “This bit is going to hurt.”

“What do you- fuck!” The scream tore from your lips before you could stop it as she lined up the rest of the thick and stiff material along your arm, almost reaching your elbow as she pulled the device tighter and tighter, before sealing down each strap, your knees almost buckling underneath you.

“Better?” You glared at her, but you couldn’t deny that it did feel better, and as you smoothed your sleeve back down over it, you wiggled your fingers a little, finding that the slight motion didn’t bring you as much pain as it had been, finally giving you some use of your hand back. You begrudgingly nodded, and she smiled, turning her back on you as she tilted her head in the direction she had come from. “Let’s go, come on!”

Music began playing over the speakers as your feet carried you after her quickly, dashing through the shadows to get to your location, guards roaming the corridors as you went. Patches to confirm just who they worked for were sitting on their arms, the four letters making you feel disgusted just by looking at them.

Jorge was waiting, calling out her name as you all seemingly reached your destination. Yanking open a metal panel on the side of the roof as ‘Brenda’ dragged a series of metal poles and fabrics across the roof, Frypan stepped back, mumbling about not going and you peeped out into the dark night, seeing the drop you would be making on the flimsy looking rope.

You swallowed thickly, watching as Jorge went, followed by Minho, Frypan and Aris. Your hand may be of more use in the support Brenda had put on it, but there was no way you were going to be able to hold yourself up that long, you wouldn’t make it three metres before you couldn't hold on any longer, and you watched as Thomas guided Teresa up to the edge, holding out the material for her as she looked back at you all.

Brenda patted herself down, cursing at the feeling of something missing, spinning on her heel as she ran. You barely even processed the thought, your eyes meeting Thomas’ as you nodded. “I’ll go after her!”

“Teresa, go! We’re right behind you!” With a glance over your shoulder, you’d seen that he hadn’t followed her, instead, he was following you on Brenda’s trail. The song in your ears continued to drone on as you caught up to her, rifling through drawers quickly, both you and Thomas falling into the room as she found what she was looking for.

When you tried to back out, the armed guards made their way up the stairs, and your fear spiked, as did your adrenaline when they turned to see you. Taking a step forward, she shot at them as they ducked for cover, giving the three of you a chance to run to the door in the back of the room. The passages were barely even corridors anymore, no longer a part of the buildings system as you looked out over the entire building, the metal grates squeaking and shaking under your feet as you moved along them quickly.

“We’re almost out of time!” You were being closed in on from either side, guards blocking your entrance and exit, and Brenda had begun making her way out across the support beams holding the building up, treading carefully as she swayed side to side, trying to keep her balance in her haste. You took Thomas’ hand, squeezing it tightly in reassurance before you followed after her, arms out by your sides as you moved as quickly as you could. Climbing up onto a platform, she motioned out to you, her hand out to help you climb over. “Hurry! The song is almost over!”

Your feet landed on the floor, Thomas grasping onto the other side of the railing as crackling sounded on the speakers, the melodic humming ending and bright lights and sparks flew out from metal all along the building, blinding bright as metal groaned and exposed outwards in a series of small but powerful bursts, followed by one large boom, flames licking up into the air as smoke suddenly filled your sight, burning at your eyes.

The beams began to fall away, clattering to the ground as slowly but surely, the building began to collapse in on itself, Thomas’ eyes fixing on the way the roof was caving in, the fire spreading rapidly. Your voice screaming his name pulled him from his shock, and he scrambled over the bars on the ledge, the whole platform you stood on tilting and swaying as it was torn down, and you ran in the same direction as the girl before you, following her towards the old escalator shaft.

Two wires were still there, and as she jumped for one of them, a hand wrapped around your waist, pulling you into his chest side tightly as he jumped, dragging you with him, one hand wrapping around the metal string as he slid down it quickly, your other hand coming out to hold it too as you moved towards the bottom quickly.

Your legs had tangled together, the two of you rolling ungracefully across the floor as you hit the bottom, dust filling your lungs as you gasped for breath. Thomas rolled off from on top of you, a hand clutched to his chest as he heaved for breath, debris and burning chunks of wood fell down the shaft, lodging themselves in and blocking the shaft as a possible way out, a groan falling from your lips as you stood up. “You have got to stop doing dangerous shit without telling me what you’re doing first.”

You took a moment to process his words, your jaw hanging slack as you turned to face the boy, your hand coming out to shove at his chest as you scoffed, but you couldn't help the amusement on your features as a shallow laugh left you. “I cannot believe you just made that joke.” You chuckled, shaking your head as Brenda dug about in the junk, and you looked over at her, her torch shining over utter crap and rubbish as she moved about.

“How are we going to get back to the others?”

“Relax, I’ll get us out of here. You can hold the torch.” She handed you another torch, and you took it, looking about the dark scrap heap for yourself. Thomas continued to interrogate her as she talked about the ‘safe haven’ a place free from infection and the harsh sun, and you almost wanted to roll your eyes, refusing to believe such a place existed. How could it, when the world was living in this state?

“You know, you ask a lot of questions.” Brenda snapped, a laugh leaving your lips and Thomas shot you a look, almost a pout on his lips and you shook your head, fondly. “Why can’t you be like her, quiet and brooding. I like that.” She motioned towards you with the torch, before looking back down at the grid she had uncovered. “Can you just come and help me with this? Please?”

Stepping forwards, he locked his fingers between the grates, lifting with a grunt as the metal creaked, before gravity finally pulled it backwards for them as they let it go. Shining your torch down into the gap, you cringed at the smell coming out of it, screams echoing along the tunnel walls.

“That’s a reassuring sound.” You muttered, Brenda rocking back on her heels as she crouched, looking up at you both.

“They’ll be full-term down here.” Your own eyes widened at the thought that they could get any worse than the ones you had already seen, a sarcastic comment on the verge of rolling form your tongue before she was lowering herself into the tunnel, and you threw your head back with a groan.

“Sure. Let’s crawl into the wretched pit full of screaming. I love this idea.” Thomas glanced up at you, his body already halfway lowered in as you spoke and his eyebrows rose up, the word ‘really?’ already plastered sarcastically across his features before he disappeared into the darkness. Shaking yourself down, you peered down into the edge of the gap, before sighing, jumping and landing on the floor below, Thomas looking at you with his hand held out above his head as an offer to help you down, before he lowered it back to his side, a smirk on his lips.

Brenda was already setting off, and you motioned for Thomas to go first, since you held the second torch. Looking around, you noticed the graffiti on the walls, some just colourful drawings and markings, while others were warnings, sprayed signs of help and tales of what had happened to the world. You could hear the two talking, walking away from you as they guided themselves, and your fingers came out to brush against the words before you, red paint having dripped down from the lettering.

“It’s the end of the world.”

You hummed, as you stepped away from the wall. “Yeah, you don’t half say, pal.” Looking around, you could hear the footsteps of Thomas and Brenda ahead of you, but could no longer see the light from their torch, and you followed the direction you thought their voices were coming from.

The deeper you got, the more the smell increased, vines crawling along the walls, the dry rock you had been walking cross before was now covered in mold and moss, and you lifted your hand to cover your nose as you followed their voices.

Bodies were lying in the thick vines as you moved past them, footsteps silent and your breath held. You had almost cleared the patch when the scrabbling of claws on the floor caught your attention, a colony of rats scurrying towards you and past your feet. Around you, the bodies began to move, shooting out to grab at the food running past them, and a hand wrapped around your ankle.

A scream tore from your lips as the cranks eyes opened, rolling forwards from the back of its head to look at you as its jaw opened and closed, teeth clicking and grinding together as it tried to tear itself free from the vines that had grown over it on the wall. Lifting your other foot, you stomped down harshly on its arm, the creature growling as the limb snapped and freed you, and you backed away as more and more became loose from the wall.

They were closing in on you, hands reaching out and you began to weave through the rotten hands reaching to you, twisting and turning as you moved through the tunnels, no idea where you were headed. Your name was being called out frantically, you could hear Thomas shouting to you, but it was muffled as the snarling and roaring of the once human, now rotten beasts chased you.

When you finally found light, you headed towards it, never having been so happy to feel the heat seeping in from the sun, or the broken buildings and sand dunes ahead of you. But as you neared, you realised how high up you were, the concrete cracked and broken, chipped away into a ledge. You slowed down upon reaching it, stopping as small pebbles and dirt flew over and fell the long distance.

Behind you, three of them rounded the corner, tripping over one another and sliding across the floor. There was only one direction you could go in and that was up. You caught sight of the other torch moving towards you, light flashing on the walls as they ran and you dropped your own, needing your good hand to be able to climb now as you bolted up into the fallen building.

Dragging yourself up and over rubble, ducking into the crushed building. Thomas called out your name, and you glanced back, cranks crawling up the heap behind you as he stood at the bottom. “We’re coming for you!” You bolted as the creatures neared, dragging yourself up through the destroyed building, but you couldn’t move fast, and the creatures were gaining on you. The staircase that had once been used was practically on its side from where the skyscraper had fallen over. It was like they didn’t need energy, or care about pain, as they jumped up through the gap, the flesh on their fingers tearing as they grabbed at stone and metal, heaving themselves closer to you rapidly.

As one finally approached, you hadn’t worked out your next move, but before it could reach for you, it was pulled back down, Thomas’ hand having wrapped around its ankle and pulled it backwards, Brenda kicking out to it as it fell, hitting off of every piece of exposed framework on its way down. You sighed out happily, collapsing back against the wall as Thomas and Brenda made their way further up. They had almost reached you, Brenda’s eyes wide and frantic as she approached and you turned, your hand grabbing out for anything to support you on, but the metal snapped in your hand, your body falling as the door you landed on gave way.

You dropped, sliding the length of the tilted room before landed against the floor with a thud. “Are you okay?” She stood, braced on either side of the doorway as Thomas’ head popped into view and you groaned, nodding. Opening your eyes, you realised it wasn’t the floor at all, but glass. The building was practically on its side and as you looked out, you could see just how far of a drop it really was.

Pressing your hand against it, the cracks in it only expanded, and you rolled onto your knees carefully. “No, no! Don’t move! I’ll find a way down to you!” You could hear him sliding, struggling to make his way down as Brenda stayed on guard, watching out for any more. You stood to your feet slowly, the creaking and cracking of the glass under your feet silencing for a second.

“Uh, you guys! Hurry up, they’re coming back!” She was scared, you could hear it in her voice, and as Thomas held his hand out to you, you could hear her moving about, easing her way around as the clanging and screaming of another crank got closer to you. Leaning forward, the splintering in the glass spread out further, and you heard Brenda groan, hitting the wall as the creature shoved her.

Looking down at you, it's body dropped through the doorway, sailing through the air and colliding with you, knocking you back down onto the glass. You scrabbled, it’s teeth biting at you, hands slamming into the glass and you raised your arm, it’s teeth sinking into the thick support around your arm, distracted as it gnawed at your limb and you kicked at its torso, sending it flying back into another window.

Thomas had dropped down, his hand wrapping around your arm as the creature found your ankles, and suddenly, the glass fell away beneath you, your body falling. Your hand twisted, fingers locking onto the material of his coat as his hands twisted, and he dropped the metal pole he’d used to breath window, as his other hand reached out to find something to hold.

“I got you.” He nodded, and you whimpered quietly, eyes squeezing shut as you shook in his grasp. Pulling you back up, he took your shaking form into his arms the second you were away from the gap, his own trembling hands cupping your cheeks as he pressed his forehead against yours. “I take my eyes off you for two seconds!” He whispered, a hoarse laugh leaving you and he pulled back, hands running over your shoulders and arms.

He found the torn material of your jacket, teeth marks in the fabric and he could barely grip at the sleeve to pull it up his hands were shaking so badly. Clear bite marks were shown in the support on your arm, but the material hadn’t torn, and you rotated your hand, showing him both sides as you shushed his quiet panicking. Your hands grasping at the material of his shirt.

“You make me think I’m going to lose you one-” He held his finger up, a small smile on his face, “-more time, and I will go out of my freaking mind!” You pulled him close to you, your face buried in his shoulder as his hand wove into your hair, clutching you to his body as he held you, heartbeat slowing considerably now he had you in his arms again.

“Are you both okay?” Brenda was looking down at you, a relieved smile on her face as she saw you were alright, and you ran a hand over your face.

“Can we get out of this damn building now?” You muttered, a laugh leaving her as she nodded.

“Let’s get you guys out of there.”

#thomas #thomas the maze runner #thomas tmr #thomas tst #thomas tdc #dylan obrien thomas #dylan obrien the maze runner #dylan obrien fic #dylan obrien imagine #dylan obrien/reader #dylan obrien x reader #thomas x reader #thomas/reader #tommy month #tomuary #tom-uary #feels like loneliness #FLL

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junker-town · 4 years

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The Fukushima surf revival

Emma Athena

How surfing was revived alongside a community in the wake of a tsunami and nuclear disaster.

Shinji Murohara sits in the cluttered office of his surfboard factory at the edge of Odaka, a sleepy seaside town nine miles north of the now-decommissioned Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. The 52-year-old local surfing legend leans back, dressed in his signature groutfit: head-to-toe heathered gray sweats and silvering fringe around his temples to match. His eyes are deep-black, his verbal cadence quick and choppy. He gestures to the room next door, telling a story he’s told a thousand times before.

”It felt like a movie,” Murohara says, shrugging. “No one can understand except for the people who experienced it.”

Next door is the shaping room, where giant foam blocks are shaved down to sleek ovals, and where Murohara was at 2:46 p.m. on March 11, 2011, when a 9.0-magnitude earthquake bloomed from the Pacific Ocean floor and triggered the most devastating tsunami in Japanese history, causing the Daiichi power plant to explode.

On the morning of the triple disaster, surfers bobbed in the water, nine miles from Murohara’s shop. They felt the water flatten and recede, a harbinger, and scrambled from the ocean up the nearby hill where a shrine and playground complex sit. From their perch they watched the waves return, bigger and bigger and bigger. They survived, but the world around them crumbled and broke.

If Fukushima was a book, the cover would be about radiation. But the contents would be totally different. Of course, people never read the contents.”

For five minutes, Japan shuddered in violent spurts as the Tōhoku fault gave way. Tremors ripped all the way to Beijing, and sent large ocean waves 5,200 miles to the California coast. When the earth settled, Japan had shifted 7.9 feet closer to the U.S., and a 250-mile stretch of the coast dropped two feet.

Murohara shook off the dust. Neither his two-story surfboard factory nor his childhood home, just a stone’s throw away, were badly damaged. At first, he figured business would go on as usual, earthquakes being relatively common in Japan and elsewhere along the Pacific Ring of Fire. Twenty-four hours after the disaster, Murohara heard for the first time that the power station had leaked radiation.

Murohara leans forward, placing his elbows on the table and palms together as though in prayer. He never could have known that what unfolded in the wake of March 11 — the government’s fumbles, the media’s hunger, the tens of thousands of lives lost and displaced — would turn his vibrant ocean community into an empty shell, haunted to this day by misinformation and fear.

“If Fukushima was a book,” he says, “the cover would be about radiation. But the contents would be totally different. Of course, people never read the contents. It’s our job to change this.”

The story of modern-day Fukushima arguably starts in the 1950s, after American soldiers dropped the atomic bombs but before they brought over their surfboards during reconstruction duty. Surfing was introduced to Japan in a sweet spot of its history, when new technologies and a flood of Western media ignited visions of never-ending progress and wealth.

Fukushima’s waters are coldest in March, when snowmelt from the Yamagata mountains flows into the rivers and creeks that wind through farms, towns, and factories as they journey to the sea. In Odaka, where freshwater combines with salt, life reflects the constant negotiation between the ocean’s meditative qualities and its deadly force.

In most places, the Fukushima coast is now, as elsewhere in Japan, buttressed by a concrete wall — 30 feet high, miles and miles and miles long. Giant concrete tetrapods are scattered across the beach floors, manipulating the surf. After the tsunami, defenses were not only rebuilt but enhanced. Just one strip of unadulterated sand remains, hugging the eastern point where surfers like to gather.

As Murohara was resettling in Odaka in 2016, he had seen dramatic international headlines that exaggerated or mischaracterized the water’s danger. Headlines like Wavelength Mag’s “The Fearless Surfers of Fukushima,” Al Jazeera’s “Fukushima’s surfers riding on radioactive waves,” and the Daily Mail’s “Japanese daredevils brave the contaminated water and sand.” Once people were allowed back in the region, sensational media flooded the internet — like photos of flowers, purportedly mutated by Fukushima Daiichi’s radiation, but actually photoshopped.

Emma Athena

Shinji Murohara in his surfboard factory located in Odaka, Fukushima. He has lived in the prefecture his entire life.

In Murohara’s telling, the book of Fukushima would begin not with the faulty nuclear plant, nor the aftermath of the accident, but in the early 2000s, back when Fukushima’s surf culture was deepening its roots and the local economy was flourishing from the surf-tourism campaigns he’d helped orchestrate. He would not linger on the ways in which Odaka, now polished clean of radioactive fallout and reopened to businesses, is still struggling to rebuild after the evacuation.

Murohara wouldn’t belabor the fact that Odaka’s population has dropped from 13,000 to 3,000, nor that the 15-minute drive from his home to Fukushima’s best waves, at Kitaizumi Beach, is filled with reminders of what once was: thigh-thick bamboo and a towering pine forest now littered with buried watermelons, lures for radioactive monkeys and wild boars; shiny solar panels occupying abandoned rice paddies and lots where homes used to stand; boarded buildings separating the one laundry service and two hardware stores on main street; how the only reopened guest house, once full of dripping wetsuits, is now empty some nights. At Kitaizumi Beach, there used to be a campsite where surfers and families hung out, and a restaurant that fed hungry bellies, and a public hot spring that welcomed tired bodies. Now, it’s a parking lot with bathroom facilities and some planted saplings.

Murohara would rather highlight the new grocery store and food hall/community center, where you can now buy Murohara Surfboard Productions (M.S.P.) longboards and shortboards after slurping down a steaming bowl of ramen.

He’d note that M.S.P. was one of the first local businesses to begin employing people in 2016 when residents were given the all-clear to return, and how he’s currently in the middle of doubling the space of his production facility to make room for new contract work manufacturing boards for Mayhem and Murasaki sports, North America and Japan’s biggest surfboard producers, respectively.

Though Odaka’s streets may pulse like a weak heart, he’d wax on about the upcoming international surf events that he and his partners at Happy Island Surf Tourism — Fukushima translates to “Happy Island” — have planned at Kitaizumi this summer, where extra-wide stairs extend across the length of the seawall that faces the beach like tiered amphitheater seating, perfect for watching the sunrise, or surfers ripping on waves.

He’d acknowledge that while the ocean caused incalculable damage — killing 2,000 people in Fukushima and 16,000 more elsewhere in Japan, destroying hundreds of thousands of buildings, and causing radiation to poison homes, farms, water supplies, and animals — the ocean has also helped people heal and finally feel at home again. To Murohara, the real story of Fukushima is a story of rebirth. It is a story about the weight of physical and mental trauma, of deception and unshakeable stigma, and how a destructive force can be channeled into regenerative power.

Prior to 2011, Fukushima was nationally famous for its rice, sake, farm-fresh vegetables, and horse sashimi, but, most of all, for its samurai history. Every summer since the 1300s, a military-training-exercise-cum-festival tournament has taken place in the giant grass field in south Minamisoma City, the ruling municipality for Odaka and Kitaizumi Beach. For three days, tens of thousands of spectators cheer on a reenactment of warriors from one of Japan’s most iconic eras. In one event, men wearing traditional samurai armour race horses around the dirt track; in another, men clad in all-white cloth capture wild horses with their bare hands.

In its recovery from World War II, Japan rapidly expanded its industrial base. Factories and manufacturing centers sprung up in Fukushima, which is located in convenient proximity to Tokyo and swaths of open land. The prefecture had already been supplying Tokyo’s metropolis with resources, namely energy, since the late-1800s, when coal mines were bored into the landscape. However, the island-nation’s finite natural resources dwindled as decades passed, and the need for alternative energy grew. Despite experiencing the devastation of nuclear weapons in 1945, Japan turned to nuclear energy.

Framing the effort as a means to peace and modernity, the Japanese government began investing in nuclear power in 1955, constructing its first nuclear power station in 1961. That same year, town councils near Odaka agreed to invite the Tokyo Electric Power Company and the new American light water reactor to their coastline. The system was hailed as simpler, safer, and cheaper than the alternatives, and citizens were assured that the 10-meter sea wall would protect them against worst-case natural disasters. Using Fukushima’s waves to help cool down the reactors, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station opened in 1971, and the plant was shipping energy to Tokyo in time for the last coal mine to shutter in 1976.

By early 2011, Japan was generating 30 percent of its energy via 54 nuclear plants, second in the world behind France in terms of percentage of electric power supply. Japan’s plan, according to a report from the World Nuclear Association, was to boost that number to 50 percent by 2050.

As Japan was implementing nuclear power infrastructure, surfing was gaining popularity around the globe. Starting in the 1950s, images of people surfing trickled into Japanese media. The 1959 surf movie Gidget — a Sandra Dee romance about a blonde, spunky teenage California girl — is widely credited with piquing mainstream interest in the sport all over the world. In the early 1960s, American troops deploying to Japan brought their surfboards with them, passing along surfing techniques by word of mouth. By the 1970s, surfing had sunk its teeth into Japanese culture, with more than 50,000 surfers riding waves along every available coastline.

However, surfing wasn’t afforded the same welcome to the shores of Japan as nuclear power. While the big, economic engines of nuclear power stations were received with relatively open arms, surfers were stereotyped in the same vein as hippies: lazy and unfit for serious societal demands. Left to themselves, surfers separated into tight-knit clans up and down the coasts, from the southern beaches of Miyazaki to the northern stretches of Hokkaido.

Among those who know surfing in Japan, the break at Kitaizumi Beach is considered the best within 100 miles, and the most consistent in the entire country. If it hadn’t been for the 2011 triple-disaster, one of Murohara’s colleagues, Hideki Okumoto, is positive that Kitaizumi Beach would have been chosen as the site for surfing’s inaugural Olympic competition in 2020.

Okumoto, a dynamic and fast-talking professor of economics at Fukushima University, has worked with Murohara on local surf-tourism campaigns since the early 2000s. Around that time, Okumoto was invited to advise Minamisoma City’s government on the region’s failing industrial economy. While everyone was trying to figure out how to resuscitate the electronics and auto factories that had been keeping them afloat, Okumoto, a longtime surfer, recalls telling the mayor, “‘You don’t know the real resource of this city. This area has a good wave and a good beach — it’s a good resource for this city.”

By 2004, Okumoto and Murohara had formed a nonprofit together, Happy Island Surf Tourism. Both men were assigned to a city-backed committee, alongside representatives from the chamber of commerce, tourism office, education department, and hotel association.

Local surfers were enlisted to help clean up the beach, and became de-facto brand ambassadors for the area. Seeing this, city officials began to reconsider their perception of surfers. The interdisciplinary committee was eventually given a $200,000 budget for work on Kitaizumi Beach, which they used to hire long-overdue lifeguards. “It was the first time in all of Japan that surfers got taxpayer money from a city,” Okumoto says.

Their initiatives worked. According to the tourism office, Kitaizumi’s summertime beach attendance swelled from 54,000 people in 2005 to more than 84,000 people in 2010. Murohara and Okumoto organized national and international surf competitions, attracting the all-holy World Surf League in 2007, which brought stars like John John Florence to town for a qualifying event. For the first time in Minamisoma City history, hotels reached full capacity.

As Kitaizumi Beach started to register internationally, so did local surfers. “In this area, there were many kid surfers, but they didn’t want to be pro surfers because they couldn’t imagine it. But when big contests came here, they thought for the first time, pro is so close to them,” Okumoto says. “They could imagine it.”

Throughout 2010, Okumoto planned to create a surf village in Odaka. The idea was to pair young surfers with older farmers to help with fieldwork in exchange for room and board, and also attract retired city folks who wanted to live a second life in a vibrant seaside community. Just as that plan was coming to fruition, however, Fukushima was struck by a horror they had been told was impossible.

On March 11, 2011, a 46-foot wave flooded the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. It cut electrical power and disabled its diesel backup generators. While the four seaside reactors were immediately and successfully shut down, the loss of all power obstructed necessary cooling procedures. Over the next five days, failure after failure occurred, until eventually, a hydrogen-air mixture built up and exploded in three of the four reactors. Then three of the four reactors experienced fuel-rod meltdowns. The final explosion happened March 15.

During this five-day window, chaos unfolded across the country, and public information was hard to come by. On the evening of March 12, Murohara received orders to evacuate via radio broadcast, but the town-wide announcement didn’t contain many details. He knew the orders were due to radiation concerns from the power plant, but he didn’t know how serious it was, how long he’d be gone, nor what the potential harms were. He packed a few days worth of clothes and drove himself and his cat, Lan, up to the western Yamagata mountains, where he could soothe his anxiety with snowboarding. Both TEPCO and the national government, which owns a majority share of TEPCO, issued press releases over the ensuing days, but each one was vague. Some people hid in their homes and refused to leave. Some people left the country immediately.

Slowly, it dawned on Murohara that he wasn’t going to be let back into his home anytime soon. Though all the roads to Odaka had been closed, he snuck into town anyway and gathered more of his things, including his surfboard.

Like everyone around the world, Murohara had questions no one would answer. Friends and family were missing, but no one was allowed to search for them. Unlike other coastal areas that had been hit hard by the tsunami, the firefighters and rescue crews in Fukushima had only the first few hours of March 12 to search for people who had been swept away by the ocean’s waves before they, too, were evacuated and barred from reentry. The towns on the periphery of the power plant — Namie, Okuma, Futaba, and Tomioka — were inaccessible for the next seven days while TEPCO sorted the situation. In some of the adjacent coastal towns, injured people who weren’t evacuated within the first day were left to die, friends and family abandoned in the wake of the waves.

In the aftermath, there was no central resource for radiation information. The few radiation sensors TEPCO had installed in the region all went offline after they were flooded in the wake of the explosion. So where, exactly, was the contamination? How much radiation was there? What were the cancer and other health concerns, and for what people—elderly, pregnant, children? What could they eat? Where could they go?

Though very different in many ways, Fukushima’s nuclear accident was the largest since Chernobyl in 1986. Nobody knew what to expect, or what would ensue. Everybody feared the worst.

In those first tumultuous days, tech guru Sean Bonner frantically assembled and moderated an international Skype chat room from his home in Los Angeles. It consisted of 25 technology professionals, nuclear scientists, and public health experts, all trying to connect the pieces of a very complicated puzzle.

Bonner regularly worked in Tokyo, and now lives there. He had been planning a technology conference in the city in April. After he heard about the earthquake, he called his Japanese colleague, Joi Ito, to make sure he was safe. Thankfully, Ito was in Miami at the time, but when they dove into the internet to search for updates on what was unfolding in Japan and came up dry, they grew frustrated. They’d heard rumors about the Fukushima nuclear plant, but they couldn’t confirm anything. It took five days for the national government to release an official report in which they stated that not only had a nuclear accident occurred, but that radioactive fallout may have been carried to areas far outside the initial 20-kilometer evacuation zone.

“[The national government was] publishing really, really sporadic data, if and when they published anything at all,” says Bonner. Though neither he nor Ito had ever worked with radiation measurement tools, nor been trained in any sort of nuclear science, they felt the need to do something. Their connections in other industries put them through to more connections, and soon the Skype chat room was buzzing nonstop with ideas from bright minds around the world.

Sean Bonner

Safecast conducted its own contamination monitoring in Fukushima after the tsunami and nuclear disaster, and posted its findings publicly.

The group decided they must first define the problem: they needed standardized radiation measurements pinpointed to GPS locations. But when they searched online to purchase radiation detection devices, they couldn’t find any. The niche market of Geiger counters had crashed. In the years prior to March 2011, maybe a few hundred were being sold a month. Suddenly, demand had exploded to thousands of orders a day. Without personal measurement devices and without reliable information from TEPCO or the government, “People literally had no way of knowing what was polluted with cancer-causing radiation, and what wasn’t,” Bonner says.

To make matters more complicated, right after the accident, the national government rolled their radiation standards back to 1990s-era numbers, but only in select areas. As Bonner recalls, “People were like, ‘How is this number safe there? But literally across the street, a different number is safe?’”

He and Ito mobilized the chat room of experts and created an apolitical, not-for-profit organization called Safecast to centralize and crowdsource their efforts. Bonner changed the original concept of his April technology conference to focus on the nuclear radiation problem at hand, and invited everyone to Tokyo.

Until that point, standard international nuclear accident operating procedures measured radiation in averages across many square miles. “That’s like taking the weather in San Francisco and declaring a forecast for the entire state of California,” Bonner says. “It’s not wrong, but it’s also not helpful in any way.”

Within a week of the budding Safecast gang putting their heads together in a tiny Tokyo conference room, they’d invented multiple iterations of mobile Geiger counters that could trace GPS locations and radiation data from a moving car. Starting five weeks after the triple-disaster, they drove all around Fukushima, collecting scientifically sound information that intergovernmental bodies like the United Nations would later use in establishing a new standard for nuclear radiation information. They also deployed Geiger counters around the world to create a contextual database on what radiation levels were considered “normal,” and where.

People literally had no way of knowing what was polluted with cancer-causing radiation, and what wasn’t.”

When Safecast conducted its own monitoring in Fukushima, they found contamination varied street by street, sometimes house by house. As data-collecting volunteers drove around the prefecture, people would rush them, begging to know “the truth.” What was safe? What wasn’t? If volunteers had extra Geiger counters on hand, they’d hand them out and teach people how to operate them. (It’s easy: you switch it on, make sure one side is facing away from you, then walk around. When you’re done, you plug it into your computer and upload the data to Safecast’s easy-to-navigate website, and a radiation map can be generated.) The volunteers also pasted stickers on lamp posts and fences with the radiation measurements they’d recently taken, along with information about Safecast’s website and live data center.

The process differed sharply with government procedure. Bonner heard from many people that when government-deployed teams would collect measurements, “Vans would pull up with people in Tyvek suits who would [go] into their front yards and walk around with [monitoring] stuff, and then get back in, and drive away. And they’d be like, ‘What the fuck just happened?’ You know? That’s horrifying.”

Safecast decided early that all their data would be open source and designated as public domain so that everyday people and scientists alike could freely and forever access it. They also decided not to analyze the data, and refrained from declaring anything “safe” or “not safe.” Their only mission was to equip people with unfiltered, unedited information. They wanted people to make informed decisions on their own.

“We were saying, ‘Don’t trust us,’” Bonner explains. “‘Look through [the data] yourself. You take the device, you take the measurement, you’ll understand how it works. Trust that, don’t listen to what I’m telling you.’”

As more measurements streamed in, Bonner says, “What became obvious to us right away was that the evacuation areas were completely wrong, because they’d evacuated a perfect radius around the plant — basically a blast radius. … It didn’t take into account the weather or typography or any of that.” Some areas outside the evacuation zone registered high doses of radioactive material on Safecast devices, while some areas inside the zone registered the same as Tokyo — in other words, normal.

Safecast wasn’t the only group collecting data that may have raised the possibility the government-enforced evacuation zone was wrong. Right after the nuclear explosions, the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration deployed airplanes to measure the radioactive fallout around the area, flying in a grid pattern to precisely map out the contamination. The NNSA shared that information with the Japanese government, but did not release it publically.

“Whether they looked at that data, whether they didn’t look at that data — it’s debatable and will never be known,” Bonner says. “But what we do know is that they knew what the contamination zone was when they set up incorrect evacuation zones, and they sat on [the information] for four or five months.”

Sean Bonner

“We were saying, ‘Don’t trust us. Look through [the data] yourself. You take the device, you take the measurement, you’ll understand how it works.’” - Sean Bonner, co-founder of Safecast

Only after Safecast and other major organizations started publishing conclusive evidence that contradicted the national government’s actions did things change. “Then they started to readjust the evacuation zones based on what the actual data was,” Bonner says, which was weeks after March 11.

It took more than a year for an independent investigation to wrap up. The National Diet of Japan published a report in July 2012 admitting that all organizational bodies involved in Fukushima Daiichi — including TEPCO, the Nuclear Safety Commission, and the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry — “failed to correctly prepare and implement the most basic safety requirements, such as assessments of the probability of damage by earthquakes and tsunamis, countermeasures toward preparing for a severe accident caused by natural disasters, and safety measures for the public in the case of a larger release of radiation.” In other words, according to the report: “This accident was not a ‘natural disaster’ but clearly ‘man-made.’”

Regarding the botched recovery efforts, the report stated the prefecture lacked the necessary equipment to monitor radiation. Of the 24 monitoring posts in the area, 23 were either swept away or damaged by the earthquake and tsunami. Communications networks all over the prefecture were damaged to the extent that mobile monitoring posts wouldn’t work, either, and back-up monitoring cars sat idle due to the lack of fuel.

All this created “a very complicated social situation,” Bonner says, “because there was a mandatory evacuation zone, but then [also] an optional evacuation zone.” People didn’t know what to believe anymore. If they chose to evacuate, and their neighbor didn’t, did that look bad on them, or on their neighbor?

Kitaizumi Beach and most of Minamisoma City received voluntary evacuation orders four days following the triple-disaster. Many surfers continued to visit the beach while the area was nearly abandoned. Out of respect for those killed by the tsunami, they agreed amongst themselves to wait for the disaster’s third anniversary before they took their boards back into the waves, in observance of Sankaiki, the traditional mourning period for Buddhists. They watched from the sea wall as the water crested and curled, crashed and foamed, day in and day out as consistently as always, as if the tsunami and nuclear meltdown had never occurred.

In that time, the Japanese government continued to guard information and insist on control while activists tried to get their findings out in the world. Bonner says anti-nuclear activists, in particular, would approach areas with Geiger counters and measure a range of objects, “but only tell you about the one that was dangerous.” Unsurprisingly, depending on where you got your news, you likely got a different read on the situation. That still continues today.

“Trust is not a renewable resource,” Bonner says. “If you’re an authority on this and you blow the trust, you can’t just next week again say, ‘Trust us.’”

So when the mandatory evacuation orders lifted in 2016 with official “safe” approval from the government, with legitimately low radiation levels confirmed by Safecast and other third-parties, many people were skeptical. Now in 2020, most of the area’s residents still haven’t returned.

At 8 a.m. on a Friday morning in January, the ocean temperature off Kitazumi Beach is just 10 degrees Celsius, which equals 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Onlookers rub their palms together, exhaling foggy clouds that dissipate in the air. In the water, six surfers bob behind the rib cage-high waves. More are in the parking lot, pulling on thick neoprene suits. Okumoto stands atop the concrete seawall that separates the beach from the parking lot.

He lets the sea breeze soothe his light hangover as he surveys the scene: So much has changed since 2011, yet it’s quiet moments like these, watching the early-morning waves, that remind him that some slivers of life largely stay the same.

During the week, Okumoto splits his time between Fukushima University and meetings with local nonprofits, coalitions, and prefecture and municipal officials, with whom he consults on tourism campaigns, infrastructure decisions, and community-building projects as a financial advisor. After checking in with the surf scene at Kitaizumi, he’s due in the offices of Minamisoma City. He’s planning to introduce the city’s tourism manager to Adam Doering, a Canadian professor from southern Japan’s Wakayama University who researches ecotourism and surf culture.

As the sun lifts from the ocean, surfers alternately enter and return from the sea. Doering tucks his shoulder length hair into a neoprene hood and paddles into the waves. In the parking lot, Okumoto catches up with the rest of the surfers. Floppy wetsuits adorn car doors. Coffee steams. Smiles break into laughter. When one of the few local female surfers, Michi Iizuka, shows up, bundled in a knitted hat and coat and Ugg slippers, Okumoto rushes over to greet her. Iizuka’s eyes are sleepy, but perk up as they walk together to the top of the seawall and the ocean comes into view.

Emma Athena

Surfers preparing to go in the water at Kitaizumi Beach in January, 2020.

Okumoto points to her, says, “She is a great female surfer,” and then pauses, growing serious: “One of the only ones now.”

Iizuka nods. She lives 10 minutes down the street and visits Kitaizumi almost every day, if not to surf, then to watch the waves. “There used to be more women,” she says, heading back to her truck to change into her pink-accented wetsuit and get her surfboard. “Now most [women] live in Fukushima City. They only come here now on the weekends.”

Okumoto nods, aware that the evacuation orders have exacerbated the gender disparity at Kitaizumi’s beach. It’s mostly men who have chosen to return, partly due to the fact that there’s still no international standard for public dose-limits of radiation exposure. It’s generally understood that women (as well as children) have lower radiation thresholds than men, so they have been conservative when making decisions to return, especially after information was hidden and botched following the disaster.

“We want to bring the women and the children back,” Okumoto says. “There is so much here for everyone.”

Iizuka smiles, her eyes softening around the edges. “That would be so nice.”

Okumoto had picked up his hangover the previous night, when he and Doering met with Murohara and a few others in Fukushima’s surf community. Cramming themselves around the dinner table of a wood stove-heated house, they debated the future of Kitaizumi Beach until 2 a.m over homemade Korean hot pot, whiskey, and wine.

They discussed how best to build up Odaka and Minamisoma City’s tourism infrastructure. International ATMs are hard to find in the area, and with many accommodations yet to reopen, so are places to stay. Public information, like signs and bus schedules, is largely written only in Japanese kanji. Okumoto and Doering want to invest in improving this framework while simultaneously trying to lure more surfers and tourists. Murohara, on the other hand, believes that bringing in more visitors will motivate local businesses to become more accessible to foreigners in and of itself.

As a single man who’s lived his entire life in Odaka, Murohara always knew he wanted to return. Others needed financial encouragement. Every evacuee within the initial 20-kilometer evacuation zone received about $77,000 in compensation from TEPCO and the national government. In the 30-kilometer zone, evacuees received roughly $18,000, and businesses received more depending on their value. With this cash, people could buy new homes and set up new businesses outside of the evacuation zone, all while retaining ownership of their old properties in Fukushima. The national government offered to pay for renovations in buildings that had been damaged, or demolish them for free. TEPCO estimates total costs for accident repairs and reparations will add up to $202 billion.

There are still around 46,000 people who cannot return to their homes. Most of the streets in the towns of Namie and Okuma, which got the worst of the radioactive fallout, remain off-limits as decontamination efforts continue. Sections of Namie did reopen in April 2017, but as of December 2018 only 1,000 of the original 21,000 inhabitants have returned.

Odaka, which used to have 700 elementary school children across four different schools, now only has one school and 60 kids. In Minamisoma City, which never had mandatory evacuations, the population has dropped from 70,000 residents before the disaster to 50,000.

There are innumerable reasons why someone might choose not to return to a previously evacuated area. For the people who left Fukushima, that includes trauma, distrust, fear, and six years spent creating new lives elsewhere. Perhaps most tangible is the fact that, as people evacuated, businesses went with them, and there are now very few employment opportunities for people uninterested in working construction, nuclear decontamination, or decommissioning roles.

Despite the government subsidies available for new businesses, there’s a severe shortage of young workers in Fukushima. Likewise, young workers won’t move to Fukushima because there aren’t enough good jobs.

The prefecture has started building infrastructure for future industries in some of the larger abandoned rice patties and farms, namely robot and drone test fields. And renewable energy initiatives are underway: with the decline in nuclear energy, Japan now depends on foreign imports for more than 90 percent of its energy needs. The Fukushima prefecture has goals to reach 100 percent renewable energy by 2040.

Still, for most people, particularly women and young people, opportunities are slim. And that’s exactly where Murohara, Okumoto, and others like Doering think they can help. They believe ocean-based employment, staked in surf-tourism and creating positive connections to the ocean, can give the community a wealth of opportunities to regrow its roots.

It took three years to clear all the tsunami debris from the beach, and then another three to rebuild the bathrooms and parking lot after new construction and zoning policies were implemented in areas that had flooded during the 2011 tsunami. As surfers had done before the triple-disaster, so they did after: gathering for beach clean-up weekends to help prepare the space for the general public.

Emma Athena

“If I go to Tokyo and I ask people, ‘Do you know the name “Minamisoma,”’ they don’t really know the name. But they know ‘Kitaizumi,’ so that’s the real influence it has.” - Takeda Tomoyoshi, Minamisoma City tourism manager

Last July, Kitaizumi celebrated its official, government-sanctioned grand “reopening.” Lifeguards, all surfers, staffed the beach for the first time since 2010. Happy Island Surf Tourism, revived in full force, helped create a “surf experience,” where people could learn how to surf. Murohara, Okumoto, and Doering all reveled in the day. It was a hit. 37,732 people attended, says the tourism office, and around 30 percent were kids.

“It’s a fact of the disappearing trauma,” Okumoto says. Though the trauma isn’t gone, he believes that slowly reintroducing people to the ocean — whether that’s by spreading photos of people at Kitaizumi, or getting them to visit the beach themselves — will accelerate the healing process.

Doering spent Kitaizumi’s opening day interviewing the lifeguards, who felt pressure to make the day run perfectly. Doering himself had only started surfing at Kitaizumi after the disaster, so the grand opening was the first time he’d ever seen families interacting with the waves. When he went back to the beach for a surf a few weeks later, he saw a mom watching her three kids in the water. A lifeguard was giving the children surf lessons before his shift started. He cheered from the beach, wanting to happy-cry in order to diffuse his joy. Slowly but surely, the people were coming back.

After a quick costume change in the beach parking lot — Doering from his wetsuit and into a button-up shirt, Okumoto from his bomber jacket and into a velvet blazer — the two sit down with Minamisoma City’s tourism manager Takeda Tomoyoshi at his office in city hall.

This year, the prefecture declined to offer money to the surf-tourism committee, but some funding has been approved via the municipal government. They’ll use most of it to pay the lifeguards, a welcome contribution to local employment, and hope enough will be left over to entice in a food truck to set up shop at Kitaizumi.

From a municipal perspective, Tomoyoshi understands the PR value of the beach. “If I go to Tokyo and I ask people, ‘Do you know the name “Minamisoma,”’ they don’t really know the name,” he says. “But they know ‘Kitaizumi,’ so that’s the real influence it has.”

Thanks to Murohara and Okumoto, the Japanese national shortboard and longboard championships will take place at Kitaizumi in June, the first major competition held there since 2010. Murohara says more than 600 competitors have already registered. And though the Olympics won’t venture up there, Happy Island Surf Tourism plans to capitalize on the attention that Japan and surfing’s Olympic debut have received.

Over the last year, through his international business connections, Murohara has brought surf industry executives and professional surfers to his manufacturing factory and shown them the highlights of Fukushima and Kitaizumi. M.S.P. now sponsors 10 competitive surfers.

Even if surfing’s economic contributions to the region are small, they are something in a town that not long ago had nothing. Perhaps even more powerful is the surf-related imagery: kids playing on the beach, families experiencing the water, lifeguards keeping people safe, all of which will gradually replace the photoshopped flowers and sensational headlines. Fukushima is on a journey for spiritual healing as much as economic, and surfing happens to offer a little bit of both.

Shortly after the triple-disaster, Okumoto says he hiked up the craggy cliffs south of Kitaizumi Beach. People set up a village there, on top of the bluff, about 5,000 years ago. They called themselves “Kaidzuka,” which means “shell hill” — they ate shellfish, Okumoto explains.

“The ancient people were very smart,” he says, reminiscing, looking up that way while standing on Kitaizumi Beach. “They know the strength of nature.”

Like the shrine by the playground on the hill behind the beach, the vast majority of shrines along the coast were spared from the tsunami, all built on hills in locations chosen hundreds or thousands of years ago.

When he stood on top of the bluff in the wake of the disaster, Okumoto peered straight down at the ocean, still processing its capacity for both violence and peace. For the first time in his life, he had seen the sea, the cliffs, and the sand without the cement seawalls; the section had been destroyed by the force of the waves.

“I suppose ancient people saw this scene,” he says, trailing off.

The sunsets at Kitaizumi Beach are soft and subtle, facing east into the infinite Pacific sprawl. The darkness gradually crawls up the sky, like an ombre curtain rising, and when it’s done, it’s day again.

That’s the beauty, isn’t it? Okumoto says, “The waves will always come.”

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