Tasha woke to the sound of Ben screaming. She shot up, falling from the unfamiliar bed, landing on her stomach on the worn floor of the room. She glanced around briefly, identifying the Med-Jack hut with an eye that has seen the inside of that place more times than she'd like to admit. She's snapped out of her analysing by the grind and thump of the maze doors and it all hit her like a truck, her head aching and her mind swirling with thoughts. One pressed to the forefront as Ben's screams echoed through the Glade once more. Running like she always did, she skittered out of the door, feeling her shoulders ache from Ben's grip and the tree's bruising, and she bolted across the field to where the rest of the Gladers were gathered.
She had only seen it once before, seen them and their sharp sticks turned against another Glader who had broken the rules, he was an older boy, she had only been there about a month, but she could see the fear and anger in the boy's eyes; she hadn't known him well enough to care. She had been with them at the time, by Newt's side and still wary of the others, ignorant to the boy's pleas, pushing him out with cold, unwavering determination. She hadn't known the horrors that awaited him then, what it was like in the maze after dark. She knew now though, and she couldn't wish that upon anyone else.
Her running was haphazard, all flailing arms and legs and terrified expression, eyes fixed upon the doors looming up ahead. The maze was almost closed and she could see the fear on Ben's face, only fifty feet from where the boys were gathered. Chuck had turned away from the others and his eyes went wide, seeing Tasha so desperate to reach Ben; he reached out, calling her name, snagging her wrist and making her faceplant into the ground.
"No!" She cried, scrambling to her feet, dirt smudged across her nose, the gap between the doors closing faster than before, if that was possible. The boys had withdrawn the poles they used to push Ben into the maze and the group watched as Ben scrambled to get through the doors, to avoid being squished by them, backing into the maze. She watches in mute horror as his eyes find hers and there's nothing but regret. It's strikingly similar to the night only a year ago and she hopes he doesn't say 'I'm sorry.' She doesn't know if she could hold herself together. It takes all she can not to let the words escape her lips, part of her brain reminding herself that it's not her fault, the other screaming with guilt. Tasha finds she can't breath all of a sudden, lungs refusing to cooperate. She's shaking, not crying, just standing and trembling and not able to breathe. The others are leaving, I should leave with them too. The voice in her head is mild but she can't move, she can't think, she can't breathe. Everything seems to be fading, but someone's pulling her into a hug, wrapping their arms around her tightly. She buries her head into their chest and struggles to let air into her lungs, but she tries her goddamn hardest.
"Come on, Tash, breathe." It's Gally's voice in her ear, it sounds tired and heavy, but its him. Tasha focuses on breathing, on the slow laborious in and out of air. He rubs circles into her back and Tasha curled her arms around him. She clutched at his shirt, pressing her forehead against his chest, eyes closed. His breathing is steady and she can hear the beating of his heart. She thinks that it's nice, that if the world could stop for a moment, she'd like to simply fall asleep in Gally's arms because this is the first real break she's gotten since that Greenie arrived, she doesn't have to look for anyone, she doesn't have to run, she doesn't have to explain herself because in that moment, Gally understood.
"Sorry." She managed to mumble. Her fingers uncurled from the burgundy fabric of his shirt and she managed to take a deep breath, breaking away from him. His expression was somewhat angry, but not with her, perhaps simply discontent with the world they lived in. Gally was like that a lot.
"He was my friend." He told her, his voice quiet and serious, "I get it." He sighed, looking around at where the boys had begun to disperse, before clapping her on the shoulder. Tasha swallowed hard, looking at her hands that were trembling, though the rest of her was still. "Don't get any funny ideas. I still hate you." In that one moment, she and Gally had seen eye to eye, but it was gone now, blown away in the wind, and he was still the shuck-face who broke her foot and teased the Greenies.
"Slinthead." She huffed, but he ruffled her hair with a sad smile on his face. His face fell as he looked back at the maze, before turning and joining the other boys as they went to get dinner. Tasha she joined Thomas who stood still, gaze flicking between the Maze doors and watching as the boys headed back to the hut.
"I thought you hated him." Thomas's voice was quiet and he turned to her. Tasha shrugged, wrapped her arms around herself and looked at the ground.
"I do." She said, simply. Thomas frowned and Tasha can feel the beginning of a headache in the back of her skull, or perhaps that's her stitches starting to ache.
Thomas's gaze roamed over the Gladers and he opened his mouth, questions on the tip of his tongue, "But -"
"Death is death." That shuts Thomas up fast. He rocked back and forth on his heels, lips pressed together, eyes watching the small brunette Runner who was looking at her feet. Tasha sighed, not noticing his gaze, and turned to follow the rest of the Gladers.
"What's it like?" He asked, suddenly, calling out to her. Tasha frowned, stopping mid stride. She lowered her foot to the ground and swivelled on her heel to face the Greenie. "Being a runner." He clarified, quickly. Tasha clucked her tongue, thoughtfully and her sad gaze turned upon the doors of the maze. Her hands didn't shake, but she didn't look comfortable. Thomas sort of wished Newt was there, to help calm Tasha down if nothing else. She looked as though she wanted to bolt, tipping her weight onto the tips of her toes and bouncing there, almost overbalancing, as if poised to get away.
"Ran just like you did, her first day here. Straight through that forest, face first into a wall." Newt's words float into Thomas's head and he wondered if that's just how Tasha was, that maybe she was such a good Runner because she couldn't physically be anything else.
"It's the terror of a night that will never end." She began slowly, Thomas grimaced, but Tasha was lost in thought, evaluating her words as she chose them, "It's the reason I can hardly sleep. It's the exhilaration of dying -" Tasha blanched and quickly corrected herself, "almost dying - a thousand times over." She grinned, her eyes focusing now, her words carefully chosen as she delivered them to the Greenie. "If this place is heaven, then the Maze is hell and I am a fallen angel, because there is nowhere I'd rather be, and now I'm living on borrowed time." She hummed thoughtfully, Thomas staring wide-eyed at her, the half-delirious tone she spoke with, the darkness in her words. Tasha's smile softened, "But there's a 'maybe' that... " She stumbled over her words, her mind flashing to Newt's words, which she parroted, "it's that 'maybe' that has to keep you going." She looked at him, lost once more to the sea of thoughts her mind had become, tearing her away from the pain of losing Ben and injecting her fear, her love and her adoration for the maze into her speech. "Maybe there's a way out, maybe it's worth it, it has to be." She took a deep, shaky breath, her smile falling as she turned back to the Maze, to where Ben had been banished. She could still hear his screams echo in her head. "Being a runner is good. Running is easy. Mapping is easy." There was no enthusiasm behind her words, not energy, it was if the brief burst of excitement had drained her, leaving her tired and worn, looking older than she really should "Living life inside the Glade, day after day after day?" She poked him in the chest, her smile sad, "That's what's difficult."
"If it's so dangerous, with the grievers and being stuck overnight-" He splayed and balled his hands up, more confused now, but somehow understanding the faraway look in Tasha's eyes. He knew now why she always seemed poised to run, like a bird only moments away from flight, it was how she survived in the Glade. He still wanted to know, however, if the maze was so terrifying then why -
Tasha froze up, before her gaze turned icy cold and he was reminded of the cold glare she gave him the previous afternoon. Something wasn't right, there was more to her story and to Newt's than what they were telling him. "What do you want me to tell you, Greenie," Thomas looked visibly hurt as she spat the nickname, crossing her arms over her chest, "that I'm a thrill seeker? An adrenaline junkie? I won't deny it, if that's what you're looking for. I'm a runner. I look for a way out. I like how my life works, OK?" She turned on her heel and stalked away.
"Why were you so freaked out about Ben, then?" Thomas called out after her, "He attacked you, could've killed you!" Tasha stopped and Thomas could see her take a deep breath. She turned, not her whole body, just her head, enough to bite out her sentences.
"Ben was my friend, and it's my fault he's dead. I should have-" she sucked in a gasp of air, squeezing her eyes shut and willing Ben's pained expression out of her mind, her intensity dropping and she became sad before Thomas's eyes, "-should have known he was stung, gotten him seen to. Now it's on my head, the death of my friend." She turned from melancholy to angry and she turned and snapped at the Greenie, "Incase you hadn't noticed. I don't make friends well." Tasha cleared her throat, realising the irony of her statement. "No-one should have to spend the night in the Maze. Ever."
"What do you know about -" Thomas's eyes went wide as Tasha pressed her lips into a thin line, realising what she had said.
It occurs to him, as he watches her storm away, that its the most he's ever heard her speak. He felt as if it wasn't a regular occurrence, for Tasha to practically burst into a monologue, but he didn't mind. Thomas thinks over Tasha's words and found himself musing upon the old saying,
'If a shark stops swimming, it dies' and it's eerily applicable to the small, sad girl who runs every day. Those walls give her meaning, help her find the escape and find herself; maybe, he thinks, maybe we're not so different.
Or maybe she'd lost herself in those walls a long time ago.
