In The Kill Order, by James Dashner, there is a moment where Mark starts to really understand how bad the Flare virus is and how much it is changing people. As he and the others try to survive, everything feels more intense and dangerous, especially when they see how infected people act. They are not just sick, they seem completely different, almost like they are no longer human. This part of the book focuses a lot on fear, confusion, and how hard it is to stay calm and make good decisions in a situation like that.
Mark watched them stumble forward, their movements jerky and wrong, their eyes empty but somehow filled with rage at the same time. It wasn’t just illness, something deeper had been taken from them. The people they used to be were gone, replaced by something wild and broken. He felt a chill run through him as he realized this wasn’t temporary. This was the new world. (p. 269)
This part really caught my attention because it shows that the scariest thing is not just dying, but losing who you are, your mind, emotions and sense of things. Making me think about how the virus doesn’t just affect the body in itself, but also the inside, your whole notion, which makes everything worse. It also made the story more real and intense for me, because it shows how people can completely change when everything around them starts to fall apart.