They walked back along the path for a while, until they came to two tree stumps. Sitting down, they faced each other. A few seconds went by in silence while Lindsay gathered her thoughts. Newt didn't push her; he simply waited for her to talk.
"Okay… Wow this is hard. So, I'm going to try to not give you spoilers, but if you happen to hear something that you think might happen, ignore it!" She looked him dead in the eyes, no sign of a smile on her face. looking at him a second more, she let it sink in, "The struggle I'm having isn't one I can just tell you, for obvious reasons, so I guess this is sort of a basic representation of it? Look, just know that it is an example. I may use a person's name, but that doesn't mean something happens to them." He nodded, just wanting to help her, even if all he could do was listen. She took a breath to calm herself.
"So, it's like if you have two buttons, one saves a couple of shanks from… let's say cancer, but it causes cancer to have no symptoms, essentially, causing you to never be able to tell if someone will die from it or not. The other lowers… Alby's, Minho's, and… umm…Chuck's chances of getting cancer by roughly 80%. However, it guarantees at least ten shanks you may or may not know will get cancer… and die from it." She wasn't the best at explaining, but her voice conveyed the needed emotion for Newt to understand.
"The only other option," she sighed, looking up to make eye contact again, "is not choosing either button. This would sentence both Alby and Chuck to have cancer, and …die from it..." A tear drops on her hand; she hadn't realized she was crying. "I-I don't know…I'm not… I'm not a leader… I'm not a god." She sobbed some more.
"Shuck it, I'm not even a main character, so why do these decisions fall on me? Why-" She sighed, wiping her tears. "Why do I even have these shuck memories?" Newt, who had been lost in thought for a while finally spoke.
"Look I don't know why the creators sent you, or why they gave you those bloody memories. But I do know you need to save them, save your friends. Cause in a place like this, they're all you've bloody got." She looked down and sighed.
"Yeah, I know. I think I had already decided that. I just…I can't help but feel guilty. What about all those other shanks?" Newt took her hand and squeezed it.
"You didn't cause the hurt, they did."
"But… I didn't stop it either." They sat there in silence for a while, neither moving. She was so frustrated with everything. The creators brought her here, even left her with some memories, but what can she do them? The answer? Nothing. At least none that she could think of. Every option she came up with wasn't a guarantee, and most would have heavy consequences, both good and bad.
She let out a frustrated sigh, got up, and threw a rock towards a thin branch, breaking it off, and watched them plummet to the ground. "Maybe if I was stronger, or faster, or had any shuck useful abilities I could actually do something, but…" A couple more tears dropped from her face. "I can't…All I'm good for is information."
"Hey, information's important." Newt encouraged. "None of us have any bloody information, so yours'll be mighty useful."
"And when all my valuable information becomes irrelevant?"
"By then we'll have found something else you're bloody good at." He gave her a crooked smile.
"I sure hope so." She didn't quite look convinced, but seemed to at least be in a better mood than before. They headed off to dinner, a comfortable silent engulfing them.
