The Scorch Trials

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2010

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Chapters 54-56Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 54 Summary

Thomas awakens, feeling elated when he realizes he is on cold ground. His head no longer throbs and his body no longer aches. He then remembers what has happened to him and his elation quickly drains away. Noticing that he is still in the same small room, he begins banging on the door for help. As Thomas pounds on the door, he thinks about WICKED and Teresa, about everything that is being done to him and his friends. He thinks also about how much he trusted Teresa, and finds that he does not like himself much anymore for working with WICKED at one point in time.

The door opens and Teresa is standing on the other side. She is crying, and hugs Thomas, telling him how sorry she is. She says that WICKED would have killed him if she did not go along with the plan to kill him. Thomas, however, cannot hug Teresa back. All he can think of is the sign on the dorm room door that called her a betrayer. Thinking on that, Thomas realizes that “he couldn’t trust her anymore, and his heart told him he couldn’t forgive her” (303).

Though Thomas understands that Teresa was right about something bad happening to him and the need for him to trust her, he knows that things will never be the same again. Teresa tells him again how all of it was an act, how she and Aris had to lure him there, and that they were promised he would not die if they did so. Thomas says he needs time to process everything that has just happened, and when Teresa tries to take his hand, he moves it away. Thomas sees the hurt in Teresa’s eyes, but he is too shaken up to fully trust Teresa or Aris.

Aris and Teresa promise to explain everything, but Aris tells them that they need to get going, as they only have five and a half hours left of their two-week deadline. Teresa informs Thomas that there is no sign of a safe haven anywhere. Aris then says that both Group B and the Gladers are headed in the same direction, towards the place where the safe haven is supposed to be. Thomas is filled with relief on hearing that Minho and the others are alright.

The trio set off to meet up with the two groups heading in the direction of the safe haven. Thomas is amazed at how great he feels, and wonders what the gas in the chamber was. He still has doubts about Teresa, and approaches her cautiously, allowing her to explain things as they go. Teresa says that everything started right after she and Thomas were speaking to each other telepathically the night they were rescued. People entered her room with strange outfits and her telepathy suddenly cut out. Thomas then asks Teresa telepathically if she and Aris really spoke to each other while she was in the Maze. Reluctantly, Teresa admits that Aris was speaking to her in the Maze even while she was in a coma.

Chapter 55 Summary

Thomas is shocked to hear that Teresa was able to talk with Aris telepathically even while in a coma. Though annoyed by the news, he tells Teresa to continue explaining how it all happened. Teresa tells Thomas that she was told she must make Thomas feel betrayed, and that she had to let Aris know about the plan as well. If she did not, WICKED would kill Thomas because they had “others” who could take his place. Thomas still does not understand what Aris has to do with anything, and Teresa admits that she does not know why any of it matters. She simply did what she had to do so that Thomas would not be killed. Thomas thinks again about his memories, and about how he and Teresa used the word “patterns.” When Teresa finishes explaining, Thomas is still upset. To try and show Thomas how she feels about him, Teresa pulls Thomas close and kisses him, but he feels nothing.

Chapter 56 Summary

As the wind picks up even more, Thomas tries to hide the fact that he does not feel anything after Teresa’s kiss. He brushes everything off by saying that Teresa did a lot of bad things, but that she was forced to, and now he is safe. Thomas says he wants to just forget everything and focus on catching up with the Gladers. Teresa agrees, though she senses something is wrong. The trio then notices the two groups converging in the distance. The groups are walking slowly, and Thomas realizes that they still have over three hours before the deadline and the safe haven is nowhere in sight. The sky looks ominous, and Aris wonders if there might be another lightning storm like the previous one that killed so many of the Gladers.

The trio decides that if a lightning storm does hit, they will be safer in the mountains, but then make a plan to run all the way and catch up to the two converging groups. As they run, Thomas has to work twice as hard as he did in the Maze, due to the wind and debris. He tells Teresa telepathically that he is starting to regain some of his memories, and tells her about his dream of the three of them together before the Maze. She responds again that she is sorry, and that she accepts the fact that saving him might actually mean losing him, which shocks Thomas.

The two groups finally meet ahead of Thomas, Teresa and Aris, and seem to be standing still at a particular spot. The three of them wonder what is happening, and as they are greeted by Minho and the others, a path is made for Thomas and Teresa. They finally see that, in the ground, there is a simple stick with a ribbon attached to it. The ribbon says, THE SAFE HAVEN.

Chapters 54-56 Analysis

When Thomas wakes up from being gassed in the room, there are a myriad of thoughts in his mind. The first is that he is not dead, which is strange in that Teresa and Aris’s plan was to kill him. He also realizes that he feels much better: his concussion is gone and the pain he previously felt has left his body. Lastly, Thomas remembers Teresa’s betrayal and something inside him snaps. He thinks about how much hope he invested in her, hope for a better future without WICKED and its manipulations. Teresa reminds him that, at one point, he was also a part of WICKED, and he hates himself for this fact.

Even as Teresa reveals how WICKED forced her to betray Thomas and how she did everything she could up to this point to save him from being killed, Thomas knows that things between them can never be the same. Her betrayal has hurt him badly, cut too deeply. Teresa tells him that the betrayal had to feel real to him, and Thomas admits that it did, and still does. Thomas is overwhelmed by this new information and what it means for his relationship with Teresa and Aris. What really confuses him, however, is the fact that Teresa knew that by betraying him and saving his life, she might bring about the end of their relationship. This shift in their relationship complicates an already difficult situation, as the find themselves in the last hours of the Trial without having discovered the safe haven.

When the groups finally converge, they are shocked to find a stick in the ground that announces they have made it to the safe haven. From the looks of things, and with an ominous storm approaching, it appears that WICKED is not yet done causing confusion and misery for the teenagers.