Death and Suffering Quotes in The Death Cure

Right from the beginning, Thomas faces death by basically rotting in a room alone. The stench is what makes him think he's dying—often, the smell is the first sign of death.

Pshh, yeah right. Anyone who has witnessed "terror in its purest form" probably wouldn't look back from whatever they did. Plus, Janson is lying here: he doesn't know what it's like for the kids to have gone through all that suffering. It's a lot easier to watch it than to experience it all.

In the world these characters live in, there's suffering and death for everyone, immune or not immune. Cranks have the most obvious problems: their brains are being eaten by a disease. But Immunes have problems, too: everyone hates them for being immune, which means that they have a slim chance to make it out alive, seeing that they're outnumbered by a good 99% of the crazy, angry population.

There you go, Thomas: optimism. It's hard to blame him, though. If we witnessed this much death and suffering, we'd have a hard time keeping our chins up, too.

It might be hard to imagine, but people infected with the Flare were actually put in a place called Crank Palace so that they could live out the rest of their slightly sane days with other people like them. The problem with this idea is that the suffering of this disease can't go away—nothing can alleviate the pain of knowing you're about to go absolutely insane.

Like we said earlier, not only is the suffering almost impossible to mitigate for someone infected with the Flare, but seeing others who are about to go insane doesn't create some kind of bond or relief. It just makes things worse.

What's worse than being dead? Well, in this book, having the Flare is just as bad, and in some ways, it's worse. People with the Flare are cast into a world of prolonged suffering, whereas dead people are at least relieved of their pain. Thomas tries to console himself by thinking that Newt's still alive, but it makes it worse to realize that Newt has to suffer with the Flare.

Here is an example of someone trying to ease the pain for someone else. Nevertheless, this statement is incredibly tragic. The fact that Newt might not be aware of what's happening to him is a source of consolation for Thomas and Minho—even though this fact alone is pretty terrible to begin with.

Remember, these kids don't know about any kind of world without the Flare. Living in the kind of world we live in today is pretty much unfathomable to these kids.

Yeah, just think of the psychological suffering Thomas is going to go through after everything's finally done. This kid's nightmares won't be pretty. He's seen way too much, and he's also had to do all kinds of things—like kill people—that will haunt him for a long time, probably forever.