I was sitting in a comfortable, gray-coloured armchair, in the middle part of WICKED's Berg; it was the first comfortable thing I had seen in weeks.
I had just taken a shower - my hair was still damp, and it stuck to my neck - but it still felt like the sand and dust of the Scorch was on my skin, even though I was perfectly clean. I shivered and tried to get rid of that feeling.
Come on, Newt, I said to myself. You're safe, now. You're not in the Scorch anymore, you're in a WICKED Berg.
I looked up to the other Gladers. Most of them were asleep, except for Thomas and Teresa, who were chatting while sitting on a pale green couch, across the room. Minho, too, was talking to someone, though that girl looked like she was asleep.
I grinned at that; Minho had never done too well with the girls.
I suddenly started to feel tired - the heat, running and fighting started to take their toll. My eyelids felt heavy, so heavy, and though I fought to stay awake, my eyes eventually fell shut.
I woke up after what felt like quite a while.
I remembered flashes of places, a dorm, and long white corridors. The other Gladers staring at me. Faces hidden between masks, floating above me.
I wasn't sure if those things had actually happened, or that I had dreamed them. I was sure, though, about the fact that I was at the WICKED Headquarters.
I didn't know how I knew that. Perhaps it was just some weird twist in my subconsciousness.
I carefully opened my eyes.
The room where I was, was lit with a dim light. The walls were a dark red colour, the colour of blood, I thought.
I was alone, and I tried to deny the fear that I felt when I realized that; I hadn't been alone since my memory had been wiped. I looked down, surprised to find myself on a bed, dressed in a pair of black pyjamas.
There was a band-aid on my wrist, and when I pulled it off my arm, I saw a tiny, red hole. It took me a moment before I realized what that meant.
They have drugged me.
They have made me fall asleep.
My thoughts were slow, as if they were behind a waterfall of thick tar, and I had to grasp them one by one. Then a voice split the air, startling me. It scared me even more that it was my own voice that was talking to me.
"Newt, listen," the voice - my voice - said.
It sounded emotionless and flat; I was pretty sure that a recording. When had I said that?
"Newt, listen," my voice repeated. "WICKED is going to show you your worst fears, your most horrible nightmares. This is the Third Trial."
I couldn't help but sarcastically think: Oh, great.
Another Trial.
More torture.
I'm looking forward to it.
But that thought was actually only to cover the fact that I was frightened. Hadn't I faced enough fears, lived enough nightmares?
But before my mind could go on, the voice-that-wasn't-exactly-my-voice went on.
"Good luck, Newt."
This time, there was some dark tone in it, and I winced when I heard that.
Immediately, it felt like black ink streamed into my head, shutting down my vision. I couldn't see anything, and I just sat there, waiting for the Trial to begin.
But nothing happened; I sat there for minutes, in the complete darkness.
I blinked, trying to see something, and that was the moment that I realized that my vision hadn't been shut down; it was simply dark.
My hand involuntarily went down to let my fingers fidget with the blanket, only to discover that it was gone.
I was sitting on a hard floor, cold under my touch. Then a loud sound, as if something had fallen from the ceiling, made me jump up.
What was that?
A new sound reached my ears, a horrible, scraping sound, like a knife scratching over bone, making me shiver. I started to wonder what was there, in the blackness that surrounded me, but I didn't want to know at the same time.
My mind started to make up monsters, gigantic spiders and women dressed in white, blood-covered dresses and people without eyes. I involuntarily thought that I had probably seen horror movies before the Maze.
I flinched when an ear-splitting bang echoed through the room. When I stepped back, my spine hit something hard, like the shell of an insect.
The thing behind me blew a cold breath into the collar of my pyjamas, and I froze with fear. I didn't dare to move, though the monster behind me had probably already noticed me.
The thing breathed once again.
It seemed closer, now, as if it had bent over me.
When sharp teeth - it had to be teeth - scraped the bare skin of my neck, I finally screamed.
As soon as the sound had left my mouth, I felt something under my fingers. It was rough and rope-like, and I grasped it without really knowing why.
It was like a picture unfolded itself around me.
The darkness disappeared bit by bit, and when I looked at my hands, I saw that my fingers were buried in a thick layer of dark green ivy. My feet were on the narrow edge of a concrete block, about five or six metres above the ground - I hadn't even noticed that the floor had disappeared from beneath me.
I gasped when I realized it.
This is the moment when I tried to kill myself.
I felt that I turned around, and I wanted to stop, but I couldn't; I didn't have any control over my body. I wanted to scream, but instead of that, I looked at a beetle blade that was sitting on top of another wall.
I remembered the words that I had said even without hearing it come out of my own mouth.
"Dear Creators," I - the younger me, actually - said, and the bitterness of my own voice scared me.
Had I really sounded like that when I stood there, nearly a year ago?
"I hope you can see what I'm going to do now. This is what happens when you put children in a maze."
Oh, no, I thought, remembering what was going to happen now. I felt that my hands let go of the ivy, no matter how hard I tried to keep hold of it.
For a tiny moment, I fell through the air, wanting to scream but remaining silent.
Then I hit the floor.
Darkness took over my mind for a long, horrible moment, but when it went away, I still couldn't move.
Everything hurt, but I knew that, because I had experienced it before, and I was prepared for the pain that exploded in my leg. I couldn't breathe, so I doubled over on my side and filled my lungs with air.
The animalistic cry that suddenly came out of my mouth startled me; I had forgotten that I had done that. When I shut up again - now my throat hurt, too - I heard footsteps.
Someone was running, and he came closer. Minho, of course. He was the one who found me right after I tried to commit suicide, I reminded myself.
However, when the running person came into the corridor where I was, I felt my breath hitch.
The boy didn't look like my friend at all. The only similarity was that he must have been from about the same age.
The first thing that I noticed about him was that he was wearing a pair of black sunglasses, shielding his eyes. His brown, greasy hair hung half over it.
The boy grinned, a horrible, terrifying grin that showed his sharp fangs, and took his sunglasses off. That what was behind the dark glass made me feel like my lungs had shrunk to the size of marbles; I couldn't breathe.
The strange boy was a Crank, there was no doubting that. His eyes were full of insanity, but there was something else about those grey-coloured orbs that scared me even more – they were cloudy, blurry, glassy.
It was then that I saw the bloody stain on his white shirt.
He is dead.
This boy is dead.
The Crank grinned once again, took a last, stiff step forward, and fell.
He never hit the ground.
In the tiny moment that he fell forward, he had turned into a Griever. It was a big one, bigger than any Griever that I had ever seen, and it didn't help that I couldn't run away.
The realization hit me hard.
I can't flee.
The Griever will get me.
I'm going to die.
The half-machine monster roared at me, yellow slime flying out of its beak, followed by a second roar. I spun around – at least, as far as I could – and saw another Griever behind me.
They had surrounded me.
This is the end, I thought, and at that moment, the two monsters started to hurl towards me.
I tried to get away, dragging my legs over the hard ground with my arms, but it was no use. The Grievers came closer every second, and I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting to die.
I could hear my heartbeat, sounding loud in my ears.
Nothing happened.
I waited for another ten seconds.
Still, nothing happened.
I carefully opened one eye.
The Grievers were gone, and my leg didn't hurt that much anymore. The place where I was had changed, too, for a second time.
It was darker, here, but I recognized the scene in front of me even without light. I had seen this before, in my nightmares, countless times.
The moment when Lauren got shot.
I could see her, standing only forty centimetres away from me, her sword in her hands.
I could see the WICKED guard with the gun, pointing at me. I felt a wave of agony, though I exactly knew what was going to happen.
Everything happened incredibly slowly.
The sound of a gun that got fired.
Lauren throwing herself in front of me.
The bullet making a horrible thump when it hit her.
Lauren's body jerking back.
It wasn't a direct hit – the shooter had missed her heart – but I knew that the Med-Jacks wouldn't be in time to save her from drowning in her own blood. I tried to run towards Lauren, but I crashed into something, some kind of invisible wall.
After recovering from my temporary shock, I started to beat my fists against it. I couldn't bear to watch and do nothing, even though I knew – somewhere in the back of my head – that this wasn't really happening.
I saw her gasp, cough, and whisper: "Newt..."
Then her head fell backwards.
While my vision was blurred and out of focus, I slammed my hand against the invisible wall once again, though the movement was weak. My fingers were bleeding by that time, and tears fell on my hands and mixed with the blood.
I pressed my fists against my sides, trying not to look at Lauren, who was lying there, so still and lifeless.
I turned away, expecting a wall behind me, but seeing something totally different instead.
All of my friends, standing next to each other in a line, facing me. Their faces are blank as they stared at me.
It was then that I realized that I was holding a gun.
Why the hell was I holding a gun?
Then I realized two things at the same moment.
One: my arm was moving upwards.
And two: I wasn't the one doing it.
I couldn't control what my body was doing. I couldn't stop it. I also couldn't look away, so I was forced to watch my own hand go up, until the gun was about thirty centimetres away from my face, pointing at Frypan, who was the one standing at the right of the line.
I knew what was going to happen, and I wanted to scream, but I couldn't. One single tear streamed over my cheek as I looked one of my best friends in the eyes and shot him.
The bullet hit him right in the head, exactly between his eyebrows. He fell down, and my feet stepped sideways.
Now my gun was pointing at Josiah.
No.
Please, no.
Don't do it, please.
But my silent begging didn't help. Another shot sounded, and a second friend fell.
It went on like that. I kept begging and praying, and my body kept on shooting my best friends.
I had been crying soundlessly all that time, and for I couldn't open my mouth to sob, my chest was hitching with small, jerking movements.
The worst moments came after I had shot Brenda.
After glancing at the resting people in the line, I thought two opposite things at the same moment: Yes, only two friends left to shoot, the torture is almost over, and: No, please, make it stop right now.
The only people left in the line were Thomas and Minho.
My breath started to quicken when my feet stepped sideways, so that I was facing Thomas.
No, please.
No.
Don't shoot him.
Of course, my body didn't listen.
My finger hovered above the trigger. My left hand, the hand that wasn't holding the gun, made a fist.
A tiny alarm bell rung in my head.
Immediately noticing that I could move again, I dropped the gun. But the moment of having control over my own body appeared to last only a second; before I realized it, I had bent over to pick the weapon up.
I wasn't doing it myself, and disappointment hit me, followed by agony.
I wasn't pointing at Thomas and Minho this time. I was pointing at myself.
The barrel was pressed against my forehead, making a cold circle.
My finger arched around the trigger.
An ear-splitting sound followed.
I saw that my right temple hit the concrete floor. Blood trickled out of the wound in my head, into my eyes.
I saw two pair of legs, running towards me, but I knew that it was too late.
Though I didn't feel anything, my vision became black, completely black.
I gasped for air and shot straight up.
My body was covered in sweat, and for a small moment, I had no idea where I was. Then I saw red walls, my black pyjamas, a strand of blond hair in front of my eyes.
I'm in the room where WICKED put me.
I'm not dead.
I nearly felt happy.
Until an amused voice sounded from the shadows in the back of the room.
"Good morning, Newt," the voice said. There was some horribly dark tone in it. "Slept well?"
I realized with a shock that it was my own voice, though it wasn't at the same time. It sounded strange, like it was slippery, treacherous.
I saw a movement in the back of the room, and then someone stepped into the dim light. It startled me, though I had expected who it was.
The boy who was standing only metres away from me, looked and sounded exactly like me. The only difference was the colour of his eyes; mine were brown, and his were completely black, like circles of night.
When he took one more step forward, I saw another difference. This boy moved flexibly, without the limp that I had. He moved like a cat, or a snake, looking for its prey.
I didn't know where that thought came from.
Though, when he came closer, I carefully stepped off the bed.
"Hello, Newt," my look-alike said, smiling at me. He looked even more like a cat when he did that, making me shiver. "Did I scare you? Hm? Startle you, confuse you?"
The other Newt nearly looked amused while he waited for an answer, his fingers playing with a knife – which he had been holding all that time.
I knew that my voice would tremble as soon as I would try to speak, so I didn't respond. The boy that was facing me snickered, and I winced as I recognized my own way of laughing.
"Don't worry," he said, turning the knife around in his hand. "I'm the last fear WICKED is going to show you. It'll all be over soon. I'm your worst fear, dear Newt. Yourself."
I didn't wait.
I knew what was going to happen.
He – I, actually – was going to kill me. I was going to die if I wouldn't act quickly.
The time seemed to freeze as I sprinted towards my evil look-alike, dove for his legs to tackle him... and he stepped away.
I hit the floor, but not really hard, and I jumped up again.
"Stupid," the other boy said, his voice full of contempt. "You've always been so stupid."
With that, the hand with the knife flashed towards me. I could move out of its way just in time.
"Stand still," Evil Newt said, trying to stab me but failing again. "I'll make sure the Trial is over."
"Yeah, by killing me!" I shouted back, dodging another attack.
This time, the knife made a small cut on my wrist. Evil Newt grinned when he saw the blood, and he seemed to get twice that much energy. His attacks became faster and more precise.
I got cut three more times in the ten seconds after that, three long gashes over my ribs. Blood was soaking the front of my shirt, and I felt dizzier every time I stepped away. I was close to giving up when Evil Newt did something really stupid.
I had stepped backwards this time, out of his knife's reach, and then he threw it.
I ducked, and the weapon flew over my head and got stuck in the wall right behind me. In Evil Newt's short moment of stunned surprise, I kicked his legs away from under his body. He fell down with a loud scream.
While he struggled to get up again, I yanked the knife out of the wall and pointed at him with it.
"Don't move," I said, trying to sound dangerous instead of scared as hell. I felt really sick, too; black spots danced in front of my eyes and the world spun around me. The blood loss was taking its toll.
Evil Newt smiled, that horrible, treacherous smile that made me want to look away. He stood up, his hands in his pockets, though I had told him to stay on the floor.
"You won't kill me," he said, sounding as calm as possible.
I shifted my feet, looking him in the eyes.
"What makes you think that?" I asked, my voice low, nearly a whisper.
Evil Newt shrugged.
"If you kill me," he said, "then you'd be just like me."
That was it.
The last straw.
I couldn't take it anymore.
While a loud growl tore its way out of my mouth, I threw the knife at my look-alike. Even though I was extremely dizzy, I could still aim pretty well; the sharp blade was right on its way to his heart.
But before it even hit him, I suddenly started to feel light-headed. Black spots appeared in front of my eyes, and I fell down.
The last thing I thought was: Please, let this not be the end.
I'm not ready.
Then everything went black.
The darkness lasted long before I opened my eyes again.
Really, really long – hours, days, maybe even a week, I didn't know. Every now and then, the blackness got interrupted by shreds of dreams, just too far away to grasp. It was driving me crazy.
Just after the umpteenth rag of one of those dreams had disappeared, I heard something.
A soft voice, a woman's voice, familiar but strange at the same time. I couldn't hear what she said – it sounded like she talked to me from under water – but it made me curious.
I threw all of my force into my eyelids, forcing them to open. When my eyes finally had focused, I saw that I looked right into a woman's face.
She had red hair, tied back in a tight ponytail, and friendly eyes between glasses. She was dressed in a white WICKED uniform.
I felt something of recognition, but it disappeared quickly. I was sure, though, that I had seen her before. Perhaps before my memory got wiped.
She turned to someone behind her.
"He's awake," she said.
I tried to see who that other person was, but I couldn't see him (or her). I quickly stopped my attempts; my head hurt horribly and the rest of my body felt like it was torn to shreds. Especially my chest.
When I looked down at it, I saw that it was wrapped in a broad bandage. I remembered what had happened during my Third Trial, that my evil look-alike had cut me. Anger boiled up inside me, but it got cut off by the woman facing me.
"Listen, Newt," she said, her voice sounding kind and intelligent. "I know you must be very confused, now, but I want you to know that it is over."
"Yeah, I've heard that before," I said, much more unfriendly than I had meant to.
The woman shook her head. "That was a lie, you are right. But it is really over, now. There are no more Trials, I promise."
I looked into her eyes, trying to see whether she was lying or not. Her grey-green eyes told me that she was nothing but honest.
I sighed.
"All right, I believe you," I said. "But can you please tell me what you've done to me?"
The left corner of the woman's mouth twitched up, and I realized that she smiled.
"I think that I am not the right person to explain that."
She turned to the person behind her again.
"Dan!" she said, her voice only a little louder than the whisper from just. "Can you tell him what we have done to him?"
The sound of a chair being pushed backwards echoed through the room, and a young man sat down next to the woman. He looked about twenty-five years old, ten years younger than the woman. I decided that I liked him.
The man – Dan – gave me a hand, and I shook it.
"Dan," he introduced himself, and I replied with "Newt", though he probably already knew that.
"I'm sorry about the Trial we gave to you, by the way," he said, running a hand through his hair. "I think it's one of the worst we had. Sorry."
He cleared his throat.
"Anyway, eh... Well, I think you've already noticed that we've made you fall asleep, and that we gave you nightmares. Nothing of what we've shown you has really happened, but your brain thought it did, that's why you started to bleed when you got hurt in your sleep. You nearly bled to death, I think you know that. We had to stop your Trial earlier to save you."
The slight hint of worry in his voice surprised me; I had never thought that someone of WICKED could ever be concerned of me. Except for Lauren, of course. But she was an exception.
"Well, eh..." I didn't know what I had to say. "Okay, I guess."
Dan grinned.
"We'll leave you alone, now. There's someone you might like to see," he said, before leaving. The woman went after him.
Just when I started to wonder what Dan actually meant, I heard a familiar voice from behind me.
"Good morning, shuck-face."
A huge smile spread over my face when I recognized him.
"Hey, Minho," I said, barely able to hide the happiness in my voice – goodness, I was so glad to see him, so glad to see that he was still alive!
He sat down on the edge of my bed, grinning broadly. I saw that there was a cut on the side of his face, from his right temple to his jaw, but it was almost healed. I pointed at it.
"What have they done to you?" I asked, probably sounding ruder than I meant to.
Minho looked away; something I had seen only once before.
"I... I don't want to talk about it," he said.
His voice broke.
I knew that he had had a hard time, so I didn't go on, but I was still curious about what they had done to him to make him feel so upset. It must have been horrible.
"Well, eh..." I swallowed, not really knowing what to say. "I'm glad you're still alive."
Minho looked up, his eyes lighting up, like it was the nicest thing someone had said to him in days. He grinned, and even though it was a broken smile, I knew that it was a true smile.
"I'm glad you're alive, too, shuck-face."
It was a couple of days later when the Rat Man walked into my room.
I had been there since I had woken up after my Third Trial, because I had a fever and I didn't really feel like walking, and I didn't know where to go, anyway. Minho had been with me most of the time. He was bored, and talking to me killed the time a little.
We both looked up to the ugly man in the doorway.
"Hey, dude," Minho said, the usual sarcasm immediately back in his voice. "We're playing tic-tac-toe. Wanna join us?"
The Rat Man ignored the remark.
"You guys need to come with me," he said. It nearly sounded like a order, and I was pretty sure that it was.
"Why?" Minho asked childishly, and I poked him in the side.
I stood up, carefully keeping my balance, but finding out that I didn't have much trouble doing it. Minho jumped off the bed behind me.
We followed the Rat Man to some small auditorium in the back of the building, and he told us to wait here before leaving.
Minho and I sat down in the front row, waiting. Some other people came in as well; Aris, Frypan, Josiah, some girls from Group B. I had to stop Minho from attacking Teresa when she came in, but all I could think about was that they were all alive.
It nearly made me feel happy; eventually, nobody was missing.
Except for Thomas.
When the last Glader – a girl from Group B whose name I didn't remember – had sat down, we waited for Thomas to come.
A minute passed.
Another minute passed.
My worry grew every second.
What if something had happened to him?
What if he... died during his Trial?
I didn't dare to think about it.
We waited for another minute, and another one, and another one.
Everyone was talking to each other, but I just sat there, waiting and staring at the door. I sucked in a breath when it finally opened.
Thomas stepped into the room, along with the Rat Man. I felt like running over to him and hugging him – Thomas, not the Rat Man – but I didn't, because it probably would have looked kinda weird.
I saw that Thomas looked through the hall, like he was searching someone, but Minho's loud voice interrupted him in that.
"Well, I've been shucked and gone to heaven. It's Thomas!"
Well, I guess you know what happens from here :)
I hope you enjoyed this story, please let me know what you think of it!
Bye, have a nice day!
PS: Do you guys like these short stories or should I start a new, long story? (Please answer it!)