Aside from the quiet rustle of the leaves, there's no noise in the Glade. No squawking from the chickens, or barking from Nellie. No braying from their single goat.
No boys, either. Not their dull chatter in the distance, or their various work routines.
Nothing.
She wanders from her room, barefoot and scared. Her hair is down for once, as opposed to the usual ponytail or braid she leaves it in.
The gardens are empty. The dining area is empty. The medjack hut. Gathering hall. Homestead. Deadheads.
She can't find anyone, and she starts to worry. Even the animal pens are empty, no sign of the creatures that usually reside there.
The last option is the Maze, and she approaches it slowly.
She smells it before she sees it— the blood.
It's everywhere. Covering the concrete walls, dripping from the ivy, pooling on the floor. She can't even find it in her to scream, her throat closed up in fear as her feet continue forward. As she stands in it, she realizes the blood is still warm.
She forces herself to keep moving, eventually getting past all the blood, but as she turns the corner she finds the source of it all.
Every single one of her friends, dead and rotting, strewn about the corridor. Blackened veins, skin dry and cracked, hands bloody and broken. Every single Glader— except for one.
Double checking every face, there's a tiny sliver of relief as she realizes Gally is missing from the massacre. That relief quickly vanishes when she finally does see him, standing at the far end of the corridor.
He's been stung, she realizes in terror. The same blackened veins creep along every inch of exposed skin, his clothes ragged and torn and bloodstained. Black drool drips from his lips, and covers his teeth as he snarls at her like Alfred once had.
She tries to turn, to run, but her feet are stuck to the concrete floor thanks to a mix of blood and black slime.
Gally charges toward her, and an inhuman shriek echoes from behind him as the scratchy clang of metal on concrete gets closer and closer.
The Glade is on fire.
Boys are running and screaming, trying to put it out, but it's useless. There's too much fire, not enough water. Not enough time.
He stands frozen in the middle of everything, watching it all go down. He can't do anything. Smoke fills his nostrils, and he feels like he's going to be sick. Why can't he move?!
His friends are counting on him, screaming his name and begging for help. One voice cuts above the rest, higher pitched and more scared than he's ever heard. But he still can't move, except his head. He looks around frantically for the source, his eyes finally settling on the medjack hut.
It's on fire, just like the rest, and she's screaming and crying, stuck in the small window trying to escape.
He's finally able to move his feet, sprinting as fast as he can, but it's too late.
The roof collapses, burying her in flaming rubble.
His heart pounds in his ears as he runs the familiar paths of the Maze, the twists and turns as comforting as they are spine-chilling. His footsteps echo, sounding louder and louder with every passing second until they're practically deafening him.
He comes across a long stretch, straight as an arrow, no alternate paths or openings. Not even ivy on the walls. It feels endless— he can't even see the next turn ahead. He just keeps going and going, feeling like he's never making any progress down this corridor no matter how hard he pushes himself.
Eventually, movement up ahead catches his eye, a figure scaling the wall with ease. It's a human figure, not that massive, hulking shadow creature he's only heard terrified, rambling descriptions of.
No matter how hard he breathes, how fast he moves his legs, he's still not fast enough to stop that person from flinging themselves from the top of the wall. Not fast enough to catch them. Not fast enough to even reach them before a set of concrete doors begin to close between them.
He wakes in the middle of a field, sunlight beating down on him. It feels familiar.
It's quiet, and warm. A gentle breeze caresses his face as he sits up, and he looks around. There's no sign of any other life except for a single sheep roaming in the tall grass, grazing. Two chickens clucking in the distance.
Other than that, nothing.
Despite the warmth of the sun, the sweat already beading at his forehead, he feels a chill set in him, deep in his bones. Loneliness.
A harsher one forces its way onto him as he looks around and sees beyond the field he's in. There's a wooded area, and one small concrete building. But beyond that, the thing that instills a biting terror, is the wall surrounding him. He has to tilt his head to look at the top, practically touching the sparse clouds.
There's only one gap in the walls, but instinct tells him he doesn't want to venture through it.
He wrestles with the other boy, trying to avoid the black drool falling from his lips. He knows it's not the boy's fault, but he has to defend himself.
The boy sounds like a rabid animal, and he's acting like one too. Clawing at him, tearing at his clothes, at his skin.
He tries to escape, to put some distance between them, to find something he can use as a weapon— but it's futile. There's nowhere to go, stuck in the Maze; there's nothing to defend himself with.
Maybe he can climb the ivy, maybe the boy isn't coordinated enough in this state to follow him, but it doesn't matter. Alfred sinks his teeth into his victim's shoulder from behind, and he lets out a scream that tears his throat from the inside out.
Tears are streaming down his face— it isn't supposed to end like this. He's supposed to be better than Alfred; not because he hadn't liked Alfred, or because he feels jealous or competitive or arrogant, but because he knows the others in the Glade are counting on him not to fail.
But it's too late.
He already has.
There's no point in denying it— George is dead, and it's his fault. All because he was too cowardly to risk facing a griever if he doesn't have to. He watches as the builders haul only the top half of the boy's body up from the Box Hole, pale and dripping blood.
George is screaming and crying, begging for help, until he sees him.
"You did this!" he screams. "This is your fault!"
The others turn to look at him as well now, but none of them seem surprised by the outburst. In fact, a few of them are nodding in agreement with the accusation.
George keeps screaming, his voice never dying down or going hoarse, despite the fact he's getting paler and paler and— by all accounts— should already be dead.
The guilt sets in, consuming him, and he spins on his heel and runs away. His friends join in on the blaming, shouting out their own various grievances. Their voices don't fade, no matter how far into the Maze he goes.
Not even as a slimy, metal scorpion crosses his path, towering over him.
The Box is colder than he remembers, and quieter. He can't hear the scraping of the lift despite the movement, or the alarms blaring to alert the others of the impending arrival, or even his own retching.
He'd certainly done plenty of that, hadn't he?
Hadn't he?
Something's off, and he wonders why he's even here again. How'd he get here? Why is he here again?
Growling reverberates from the far corner of the Box, and he looks over to see a large black dog— nothing like Nellie— with equally black eyes. Its teeth are bared in a fierce snarl, hackles raised as it slowly advances on him. There's nowhere to go.
It shouldn't be taking nearly this long to get to the top, but there's no end in sight.
There's nothing else in the Box, no supplies or weapons or peace offerings. The only bones he could give are his own, the only meat his own, and he'd rather not do either of those.
He can't fight back— he'd tried, he's tried so hard— but he's no match for the larger boy.
Everything's happened so fast, he's not even sure why he'd thought he could get away with it to begin with. She clearly couldn't have cared less for him.
But now he's getting his due, teeth cracking under the pressure of the builder's fists. Blood pours from his nose, but his attacker— her defender— shows no sign of slowing down.
The look of pure, unadulterated fury in his face has him practically klunking himself. There's a fire in his eyes that he doubts anyone else has ever seen.
He goes limp under the builder, no longer able to even wiggle against him.
But the hits keep coming.
Wind blows harshly through her hair, whipping around her as she stares down at the water below. Thunder rumbles in the distance— six seconds after the flash of lightning— and she holds her breath.
Droplets, either rain or the slimy moss-water already soaking her hair, hit her face, stinging slightly like tiny daggers.
A beam of light falls on her, and she raises one arm to shield her eyes from the source. A car is approaching, honking frantically, but she ignores it.
She turns back toward the edge of the bridge—
and she flies.