Author's note ~
*Warning; one very minor spoiler for a small part of "The Fever Code"*
Hope you enjoy.
Alby hung on to a support post weakly, trying to process the macabre sentiment. Unseen, a solitary figure sprinted out from behind the hut, the warm sunlight glinting off his blonde hair as he tried to escape from the the horror of what he'd overheard.
Newt ran blindly, streaking past the council hall and the slammer, skirting the box and the med hut and plunging into the thick growth of trees blanketing the south west corner of the glade. His breath hitched and shuddered as he shoved through walls of shrubs and knots of tall thin saplings, his rapid heartbeat roared in his head as he hurdled fallen trees. He veered away from Adrian's house, wanting nothing to do with the place at the moment, splashing through the wide shallow stream and pushing on until his legs burned like molten iron. He broke through a stand of brush and and stumbled over the loosely mounded earth of a grave, hitting the ground with a bone jarring jolt. Trembling all over, he raised himself to his hands and knees, gasping for breath.
He found himself in the deadwoods; graveyard for the fallen.
Moving like a jerky marionette he crawled over to where the great stone walls met, the crisp corner all but buried by the mass of ivy blanketing the pitted surface. He collapsed more than sat, leaning back into the parasitic plant's cool gentle embrace, pulling his knees up to his chest and burying his head in his arms.
It couldn't be true. It couldn't.
Everything had been fine. More than fine, actually. The runners hadn't found anything new in the last few weeks, but that was honestly nothing out of the norm. Life in the glade had been steadily improving – better sanitation, better quality of food, all around better morale from the boys, especially with the periodic visits from the girls. Really, everything was going better now that it ever had before.
How could this be happening?
His shoulders tensed as he struggled to hold in the shattered sobs that were trying to force their way out, his lungs burning from the pressure. His stomach churned greasily and he fought the urge to throw up.
Adrian wasn't just leaving, he was going to die. Take his own life, kill himself before their jailers could do worse; on that he'd been abundantly clear. If he left – when he left – he'd be leaving with only one goal in mind. Death.
As horrible, as hideous, as painful as the revelation was, that information wasn't what sent Newt into hysterical flight.
You fight and bleed and struggle, you give everything, and guess what? You end up dying anyways. Newt thought desolately, his mind a jumbled black abyss, the bits and pieces of what he'd overheard swirling and colliding in his head. There is no happy ending. It's already over. There's exactly two ways out – death; or misery, pain and death.
What broke him wasn't the inevitability of loosing the man. He choked on the thought of Adrian deceiving them, encouraging them to fight pointlessly when he himself believed – when he knew – there was only one true way out of the maze. It was the final blow that finally shattered Newt's slippery grasp on hope, extinguishing the fragile flame and leaving him cold, cold, cold.
Adrian lied. He lied about them getting out, about believing they even had a chance to get out.
You think this is some fairy tale, some children's story?
He turned and dry heaved into the grass, his body futilely trying to void an already empty stomach.
You think we can skip off into the sunset and leave the darkness behind?
He moaned and keened, desperate to escape from the hideousness of it all.
He frantically tugged on the plants around him and burrowed into the unkempt vines, twisting and shoving until he was completely hidden behind the trailing tendrils and shiny green leaves.
Adrian was already gone, out of reach, as good as dead. His plan of gaining enough experience to one day change Adrian's mind had started to collapse the moment he'd heard about the man's 'meeting' with Althea, but a stubborn little part of him had remained dead set on trying. Now he'd never get the chance. Adrian was going off to his death, leaving them here to suffer and struggle.
Leaving Newt.
Leaving them alone, with no handy adult to pin their hopes on.
Leaving them to die.
He felt like the anger, the pain, the desolation of it all might actually physically crush him into the ground.
Death comes for everyone.
My choice, my right. The only thing I have left.
Newt didn't show up for dinner that night. Unfortunately, Adrian was too locked in his own swirling mess of irritation and frustration to notice, or to look for the boy. He ate his meal standing up and disappeared as soon as his plate was clean. Closed behind the heavy door of his home he devoted himself to a new project, sorting through his box of scavenged beetle blade pieces and muttering angrily as he pulled out everything he thought he could use.
Kids! God save me from hard headed, short sighted, stubborn friggin' kids!
Does he not think, for one damn second, there if there were any other goddamn way out, I'd see it and take it?
Does he not realize that this is hard enough as it is, without his useless hero act, making me feel worse.?
It's not like I want this!
He pawed through the tiny wires and circuit boards, fishing out a memory chip and holding it up in front of a candle to study it. Rigid wall, solid circuits sealed under a stiff plastic casing, marked with a tiny number that indicated ample storage space. It could work, quite nicely in fact. Barely the size of his pinky finger nail with undamaged, easily accessible contact points, he could utilize this and trust it to maintain its integrity over time. He studied the fine wires dangling from the back of the shuttered lens, painstakingly removed from the metal beast's 'head', using his knife to carefully strip the ends of the thicker wires to expose their interior. Copper, and in remarkably good shape. Easy to work with.
Did I not make it completely – excruciatingly – clear that they're just waiting to get their hands on me, eager to see how much pain they can inflict before I break?
How can anyone, anyone expect me to willingly choose that over death? Especially when I know that the torment will only end when death takes me?
How much do they think I can take?
Using a pair of tweezers he'd liberated from the med hut he picked at a visibly loose piece of solder on a broken board, pulling it free and holding it over the candle's flame until it started to drip. As delicately as he could, he used the recycled metal to connect a partially cracked power switch and a tiny led light to the sturdy square housing unit that contained the machine's micro recording hardware. Cursing as he singed his fingers, he worked slowly and cautiously, completing circuits and attaching pieces until his franken-device was fully assembled. Now he just needed a power source.
This isn't a nightmare, a bad dream I can shake myself awake from. I'm not going to suddenly sit up safe and sound in bed, heart pounding, only to realize that none of this was real.
This place isn't the product of someone's imagination; a dark world locked in the pages of an old horror story. There's not going to be a handy twist at the end, where the protagonist gets to the monster just in time to kill it and save his friends from a gruesome end.
In the real end, a gruesome end is more likely than not. Especially nowadays.
He carefully picked up a couple of odd looking bits from his window sill; high efficiency solar receptors, also removed from the beetle blade, jury rigged onto heavy cylindrical power cells. One of the batteries had been too damaged to save but the other two had remained intact, missed by the razor edge of his knife when it pierced the tough body. They'd been sitting in the sun for days; if they weren't sufficiently charged by now, they'd never be able to store enough energy to accomplish his goal. He held his breath as he connected his creation's main power wires to the terminals on the batteries and flicked the power switch to the on position.
He felt a great wash of relief when he heard the shutter opening and closing, trying to focus, and the distinctive click-click-click of the device automatically checking the various slots, attempting to identify a storage location. The tiny digital display glowed, waking up.
It's alive! He thought smugly.
He picked through the remnants of the box until he'd unearthed another few memory chips, just in case he made a mistake and fried one on the first attempt. Using an empty jar as a make-shift magnifying glass, he read the minute printing on the side of the housing unit, eventually finding an incredibly fine hole by the last slot that was labelled 'erase all'. Excited, he inserted one chip into the first available slot, noting on the readout that the device quickly identified the viable chip and showed it was almost eighty percent full. He smoothly slid a hair fine section of broken wire into the erase all hole, hoping.
A faint beep sounded from the device, and the readout on the screen changed. Now it said 'CARD EMPTY'.
Yes, this would work very well indeed.
Newt, pale and drawn, surfaced for breakfast. He ate slowly and without any real enjoyment, though the food itself was a scrumptious offering; generous portions of fluffy scrambled eggs and thick hand sliced bacon. Minho could tell right away something was wrong and worked to cheer him up, trying to suck him into an ongoing joke of an argument he had with Ben over the importance of always wearing clean runnies. Newt just shook his head and refused to get involved. He accepted his lunch bag from Frypan with barely a nod of thanks, ignored Minho's sarcasm and bad jokes, and hurled himself into the proverbial belly of the beast. His old, cynical mantra ran through his thoughts.
Stone walls and ivy. Stone walls and ivy. Bloody stone walls and bloody, buggering ivy.
He moved on autopilot; his legs knew the way. He'd run this exact pattern many, many times before. His body moving on its own, he ran through the unforgiving, callous and, right now, somehow comforting heartlessness of the maze. When he got to the end of his section he leaned against the wall with his hands pressed flat against the cold, uninviting stone, his head drooping. After lingering longer than was strictly wise he turned and started back, leaving with an odd sense of disappointment he'd never experienced before.
Stumbling back into the glade, he made his way to the map room and completed his daily schematic as quickly as he could. He didn't bother to put his usual care and attention into creating straight lines or accurate proportions; once finished, he had no desire to doodle even a single line. He excused himself before all of the day's runners even made it back, escaping from the searching gaze of his friend and keeper, unable to stand even one more minute trapped in the confines of the cold metal building. The map room was beginning to feel like a coffin, patiently waiting for those inside to accept the fact that they were already dead.
He headed back to the deadwoods, sitting beside young Eric's grave and thinking heavy thoughts.
Maybe his lost friend had had the right idea, after all.
Newt didn't show up for dinner that night either, burrowing back into his little nest of ivy as the light faded softly into the indigo of night.
Of the three days that followed, each proceeded in an almost identical way. They were so similar, in fact, that it felt almost like he was actually living the same day over and over again. He saw his friends and absently noted their growing concern – but he just didn't have the energy care.
After his second night in the deadwoods he found he'd reached a point where all he could feel was a cloying numbness; no usual tingle of nerves skittered up his spine when he ran the maze, no amusement curved his lips when the other gladers goofed around during meals, even the vastly improved food had no particular taste. Everything had faded into a uniform kind of dullness, and Newt found himself vaguely grateful. It hurt less to be this way.
Tired of watching his friend drag himself along vacantly, Minho finally snapped and called him out as he was trying to leave after yet another lackluster day.
"What's gotten into you lately?" He demanded after pulling the listless Newt out of the map room, away from where the others busily worked. "You don't smile, you don't laugh, you barely talk. Your maps look like a greenie banged a stick against a wall and called it art. You're, like, the walking dead or something."
We all are, Newt thought apathetically, the rest of you just haven't figured it out yet.
"I've just...had a lot on my mind." Newt said tonelessly, knowing the boy would keep pestering him unless he gave some kind of response.
"Yeah, I figured that out all on my own." Minho responded sarcastically, his concern for his friend warring with the weight of his responsibility as keeper. "And yeah, everyone's entitled to an off day here or there – but you can't go slackin' on your maps. We'll never stand a chance of figuring out the maze if the maps aren't consistent."
Newt felt a faint flicker; it took him a moment to realize it was anger.
"What difference does it make?" He challenged, more life in his voice than he'd shown in days, the other runners turning their heads to look as the exchange heated up. "You and I both know that we're beating out heads against a brick wall – running the same patterns, over and over and over again, hoping that today's the day that something changes? Praying for that 'Hallelujah' moment? Bloody hell, it's a miracle! There's suddenly a way out, follow me lads! Yeah, right." He sneered bitterly at the thought, his words cruel and harsh.
Minho gave him a little shove to move him away from the open door, kicking the thick metal closed to give them some privacy. Then he got right up in Newt's face.
"What is your shuckin' problem, hey?" He growled, nose to nose with the blonde. "What's the number one rule in the map room, shank? You should remember it, you're the one who made it! Never lose it in front of the other runners; if you gotta blow it off, do it somewhere else. You want to start 'em panicking? Make 'em lose hope? We'll NEVER find a way out if we don't KEEP LOOKING!"
"Almost two bloody years and still no answers? Yeah, I'd say the hope is long since gone!" Newt snarled back, his face red with pique. "This whole thing is nothing more than some buggering sick joke! If we haven't found it by NOW then there is no...no way out." His voice cracked on the sentiment, shattering Minho's anger and showing him just how fractured his friend had become. He placed his hands firmly on Newt's shoulders, holding on when the discouraged boy would have pushed him away.
"Listen...you're burnt, I get it. We all get there sometimes." Minho tried, giving his friend a gentle shake to emphasize his point. "Take a couple of days for a breather, get it out of your system. You're one of the best runners we've got, and you ARE the best map maker. We can't afford to lose you. When you get your head back on straight, think things over, I bet you'll be chompin' at the bit to get back out there and prove everything you just said dead wrong. Until then...you're off the active list."
Newt jerked himself free of Minho's grasp at the words, his eyes stormy and remote.
"You're my friend, Newt." Minho added curtly, "I'm not going to stand by and watch you get yourself killed 'cause you're in the middle of a pity party. If you keep running when your head's not in the game, the maze'll chew you up and spit you out. Not on my time."
Newt turned on his heel and walked away without a word of protest, an act so unlike the boy he knew and admired that it left Minho shaken. His gut told him that something was seriously wrong with his best friend; when Newt once again failed to show up to dinner, Minho stormed over to Alby right away.
"I need to talk to you about Newt." He hissed the second he saw the darker boy, carelessly interrupting a mildly tense exchange between the leader and Adrian, refusing to acknowledge the man at all in his urgency.
Alby cocked a brow at the passionate statement and followed the keeper to a slightly more secluded spot, leaving Adrian to puzzle over the odd statement on his own.
Thinking back through the haze of the last few days, Adrian came to the sudden uncomfortable realization that they boy hadn't been around much at all lately. He winced a little as he mulled things over. He'd been so engrossed in his own projects, so focused on the delicate and time consuming aspects of his own work that he'd been neglecting a number of other areas, and the thought of that shamed him. He couldn't remember speaking with the boy even once since the day the crude rumors had started, and decided to correct that oversight here and now. Something must be seriously off if even Minho the oblivious is worried, he thought. Leaving the boys to their talk, he immediately headed off in search of Newt.
"Something's wrong." Minho proclaimed, jumping right in the second they were alone. "He's miserable, unresponsive, distant...it's like he's totally given up. I figured he'd snap out of it sooner or later, but something about the way he's talking is...It's giving me the heebie jeebies." He confessed. "I took him off duty for a couple of days and he didn't even argue about it, he just walked away! I don't think he's in the right mindset to run right now."
"What do you want to do?" Alby asked instantly, his own growing concern ratcheting up a notch.
"Keep an eye on him for me, will ya?" Minho requested. "See if you can give him busy work or something, maybe...some small job that puts him working closely with the others? I'm just getting this feeling...I don't think it's a good idea to give him too much time alone right now, ya know?" Minho didn't dare to say the words out loud, but Alby got the message loud and clear, nodding gravely.
"Absolutely. Consider it done."
Adrian made his way through the trees easily; at a casual glance his posture might indicate he was out for a leisurely stroll, but his eyes cut back and forth rapidly, vigilantly searching for his quarry.
There was no sign of the boy around his house, nor at the small stream or swimming hole. Following a weird hunch he approached the deadwoods, respectfully stepping around the graves that dotted the barren ground. Someone had clearly been here recently – the soft dirt was disturbed in a number of places, but there were no obvious signs of the boy. He was skirting around the outer edge of the little graveyard, not wanting to linger and disturb the dead, when his sweeping gaze caught sight of the toe of a well worn shoe peeking out from the tangled lump of greenery in the corner. He approached slowly, crouching in front of the lump of foliage.
"You'd be a master at hide-and-seek, kid, except for one little thing..."
He tapped a finger on the toe of the shoe, which promptly disappeared into the ivy.
"Mind if I sit with you?"
A faint rustling of leaves, but no answer. Choosing to take this as consent, he turned and made himself comfortable against the wall. Sitting in silence, he had a sudden vivid memory flash of a similar situation; them sitting together under a tree with their relative positions reversed, Newt offering unconditional companionship as he himself worked through the grief and misery that was threatening to consume him. His heart squeezed.
Even if he ignored everything that had happened in the time since, how could he do less?
"You gonna tell me what's going on?" He asked gently.
No answer.
Recognizing this particular brand of silence and knowing better than to push, he contemplated how best to proceed. A faint hint of a smile crossed his face. He opened his mouth and started to sing in a low, mellow voice.
.
Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence
.
The ivy trembled and quaked beside him; he took it as a good sign.
.
In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence
.
There was a warmth and a pressure at his side; Newt leaning toward him, drawn closer by the music.
.
And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence
.
The shoulder touching his began to hitch in a telling way, though the boy made no sound.
"Whatever's going on, whatever you're feeling...you're not in this alone." Adrian reminded in a carefully non-judgmental voice. "Alby, Minho...me. Lean on us; we're here for you. Whatever this is, we'll get through it."
Newt's head dropped onto Adrian's shoulder and the man felt a dampness start to seep into his shirt. He didn't object, didn't consider pushing Newt away, resisted the urge to pull the boy closer. He simply sat and waited while Newt let it out, quivering and shaking beside him. They stayed there, passing the time in silence until the shadows grew long and the boy had finally calmed. Slowly and with no sudden movements, Adrian reached over and squeezed Newt's knee in a friendly way, easing away until he could groan his way to a standing position. He stretched hugely, then held out a hand to where the boy still sat.
"It's getting late. What do you say, kid? My couch has got to be more comfortable than this wall."
His hand remained extended, an open invitation. Warm, strong, patient.
After a long, long moment Newt slowly reached out of the plants and took the hand, allowing the man to pull him to his feet. Adrian held on, pulling Newt in close and draping a comforting arm around his shoulders as he led the exhausted boy to the warmth – and safety – of home.
Newt slept a deep and dreamless sleep, cradled by the cushioned sofa and buried under a mountain of soft blankets. Awake early by years of conditioning, his eyes still closed, he could almost believe that things could actually stay this way. Maybe he'd just been over reacting, or maybe the whole thing had been nothing more than a hideous dream, a worst case scenario cooked up by his over-active imagination. Unfortunately, as his brain woke up it stubbornly insisted on facing the facts.
Rolling off the couch, he pulled his shoes on noiselessly so as to not disturb the man, still snoring lightly on the bed. He stepped over and just looked, drinking in the sight of Adrian, so peaceful in sleep. He reached out and gently touched the man's face, the contact light as a breath of air, remembering every ugly word he'd overheard.
My choice, my right.
Rather than anger or despair, a peculiar sense of acceptance washed over him. He slipped out of the house silently, tucking the image of Adrian into his memory and holding it tight.
Alby found him sneaking in to the cook house for an early meal and immediately shoe horned him into taking a round of check ups; a semi-frequent task that entailed going from keeper to keeper in search of status updates, progress reports and general complaints. Newt was pleasantly surprised with himself when he found he was able to speak with Alby and the others in a mostly normal fashion, even mustering a laugh at one of Zart's rare jokes during his few minutes at the farm. He finished up with the keepers by mid morning, taking care to find some small thing to say to each glader he passed.
With one more thing in mind he jogged out to the deadwoods once again, spending a little time kneeling by Eric's well tended grave, thinking of all the things he wished he could say to his lost friend.
Satisfied everything was in order, he squared his shoulders and quick stepped through the glade, heading directly for the Western gate. He walked through it without looking back, letting himself be swallowed by the twisting corridors of the maze. He heard a few people calling out, trying to hail him before he took those last steps, but he ignored them. Pacing himself and moving briskly, he navigated the familiar path with a specific goal in mind, taking turns without hesitation until he reached a long, straight empty section. The walls on both sides were coated in a thick network of ivy.
Taking a deep breath, he started to climb.
He pulled himself up, refusing to stop even when the ground started to swim dizzily below him and the muscles in his arms burned. Pushing himself higher and higher, he kept moving until some part of his brain warned him that he couldn't possibly go any further. He grit his teeth and managed another couple of feet before he gave up, holding tightly to the thick woody vines. Turning his face to get away from the tickle of the leaves he spotted the blinking red light of a beetle blade, hardly more than a hand's breadth away from his head. He felt a bubble of rage and disgust rise up inside him at the sight.
"I don't know who you people are, but I hope you're happy." He spat, taking fast breaths to psych himself up. "I hope you get a real bloody kick out of watching us suffer. And then you can die and go to hell. This is on you!"
Shaking from the toxic mess of emotions storming inside him, he closed his eyes for a second and thought of his friends.
The gladers.
Alby.
Minho.
And Adrian. Always Adrian.
His legs tensed and ready to kick off strongly from the wall, a farewell he'd never get to say on his lips, he let go of the vines and jumped.
Author's note ~
~ The song in this chapter is "The Sound of Silence" - Originally by Simon & Garfunkel, though my personal favorite version is done by Disturbed
~ The underlined dialogue is straight from James Dashner's book "The Fever Code" (with the exception of changing the word 'buggin' to 'bloody' in my version) and all rights to that section belong to him. No infringement intended.
~ I am not advocating suicide or any form of self harm in my work. If you or someone you know is in a dark place, I pray you can find the strength to hold on. If at any time you want to talk to someone, you can text TALK to 686868 (in Canada) or Text MATTERS to 741741 (in the US) at any hour, day or night. There's always someone there, waiting, in case you ever need them.
~Ruby