Eve was floating.
Floating in soft grey light, shifting like water under the sun. It was under her, around her, on top of her; it surrounded her.
Eve didn't feel fear. She felt lost. How did she get here? Where was here?
Thoughts and questions raced through her mind, muddled and blurry.
The last thing she remembered was that there had been a scream. Something had been wrong. Eve had been waiting, waiting and hiding?
Newt. Newt had told her to wait. Wait for him. Why?
There had been fear, frantic fear. The rustle in the leaves behind her. The manic beat of a heartbeat in her chest. She had turned herself over in the grass, her fingers cold and clammy.
He had come up behind her, dripping and oozing. Black blood, blood mixed with blackness. He had been covered in it.
Michael. He was just a Runner to Eve, nothing more.
She had tried to back up, tried to get away from him.
The knife! He had had a knife. Sunlight glinted off the blade as he held it out towards her. The fear had shortened her breath, causing her to stumble in the grass. He was speaking to her, his words a jumble of nonsense spoken with malice and disgust.
She couldn't get away.
He had plunged the knife into her. He had killed her!
Eve tried to move. Her head, her arms, her legs. Nothing happened. The grey light held her still, never touching her.
She was dead! She was dead!
But still, there was confusion. Where was she? Heaven? Hell?
Voices around her, mumbling, rising and falling. They sounded frightened and angry.
The light around her shifted, shadows passed over her. The voices came close, moved away, and seemed not directed at her. She couldn't hear the words, the voices were muddled, understanding just out of reach. The cadence sounded familiar though, she knew who they were.
It was Newt, Gally ... Him.
The grey light was fading. Dark, overwhelming blackness was creeping in from the corners, spreading its black fingers over her.
Eve started to panic.
"Gally! Please, Gally!" She tried to scream, but the sound was swept away, sucked up by the blackness. It crawled over her shoulders, her chest, her legs and over her face. Eve couldn't breathe, choked by the black heaviness of her unconscious mind.
"Gally! Help! I'm dying,"
Her words drowned, she couldn't see.
There was only blackness.
As she succumbed to it, she heard a pained scream echoing in the shadows around her.
"I couldn't save her!"
The blackness grabbed and pulled her down.
She was gone.
"Blow out your candles, sweetie!" A warm, comforting presence was behind her, hands on her shoulders.
The flicker of flames danced in her mind's eye, on top of a colourfully decorated cake. The lettering of 'Happy Birthday' was clear, but the name under it was blurred, out of frame.
Eve puckered her lips and blew. The candles went out and it was dark again.
The warm presence remained, surrounding her as pictures flashed in her mind.
Memories, her own, playing back to her.
She was swimming, in a bright orange bathing suit with purple flowers. The sunlight was blindingly bright on the surface of the water.
Another flash.
Trees, dark green trees, speeding past her as she sat in the backseat of a car. The sun was shining on her, smiling at her. A woman with tousled brown hair looked back at her from the front seat.
"Almost there, sweetheart," Her smile calmed Eve.
She melted away, another memory forming.
She was standing outside a large grey building, the weight of a pack on her shoulders. A well-dressed man with black hair was kneeling in front of her. He smiled, his dazzling blue eyes sparkling in the sun.
"I'll be back to pick you up later...," He spoke a name, but Eve couldn't hear it. He kissed her on the forehead, stood and faded into the shadows. Colours passed over her, shifting shapes and pictures until it landed on another one.
A woman, the same woman from before, stood in front of her, a bright smile on her face. It was the same comforting smile.
"You're growing up so fast, sweetie. I love you so much,"
The woman hugged her, a warm feeling of protection spreading through her. Eve tried her best to hug back, to absorb every bit of that feeling.
Her mother, it had to be! Her mother, whose name she didn't remember.
If she could be here, with her mother, maybe dying wasn't so bad after all. Eve felt at home, for the first time in a long time.
Suddenly, the warmth disappeared. It was cold again.
Eve reached out her hands, searching for her mother.
"It's all going to be okay, baby," A voice whispered in her ear. It was a cold whisper, cold and afraid.
Eve felt fear, a fear not condoned.
Her mother stood in front of her, but Eve felt no comfort.
Her face was badly burned and looked to be melting away. Her body was slim, underfed. There was a smile on her face, but it did appear to be a happy one.
"Everything is going to be okay, I promise, sweetheart," Tears stained her cheeks as she backed away from Eve. "I love you. I will always love you,"
Eve reached out to her, confused and frightened. Hands suddenly grabbed her by the shoulders, unfriendly and vice-like.
Eve screamed.
"Mama!" The only word she could think to utter.
Her mother reached out to her as well, but something pulled her back, dragging her away into the shadows. Eve thought she heard her mother scream out her name, but she couldn't understand it. The heavy, hot hands around her shoulders pulled and dragged her away.
The fear never left her as an entirely new set of memories flooded her mind. Cold medicinal instruments, stark white walls with glaringly bright lights surrounded her. Men and women in white lab coats with harsh unsmiling faces. They were watching her, examining her.
She saw herself as if from the outside, lying prone on a table, in clean white linen clothes. They were poking needles into her skin, attaching wires to her neck.
The scene changed. She saw herself in a tube of water, alive and very much awake. She was screaming, pounding on the glass container. Gally, Newt, Alby were beside her, in similar tubes. They looked just as confused as she felt.
What was happening? Where was this place?
There was no sunlight.
There was nothing natural about this place. Her friends, everyone she thought she knew, were all here. But this wasn't the Glade.
This was something else.
Eve was being dragged, her feet digging into the grass as her body was pulled forward.
She was back, in that soft grey light.
Pain was the only thing she could feel. Pain in her shoulder, her chest and her heart. The knife was still in her. She could feel the cold metal of the blade against her flesh.
They were moving her. Toward the Med Jack's Hut? That was the only thing she could think would be possible. The pain never subsided. She felt herself crying as the movement continued.
What were they going to do? Were they trying to save her?
She couldn't tell who was pulling her. All she could pick up on was shadows passing over her, something soft and pliable underneath her shoulders. She could feel the cold of the grass on her legs and the dirt on her knees.
She felt a touch on her cheek, a gentle brush of fingers on her skin.
Gally. He was here.
"Hold on, Eve, please hold on,"
Eve could hear the pain in his voice; fresh tears spilled over her cheeks. She didn't want to leave him. She wasn't ready. She didn't want to leave any of them. They were the closest thing she had to a family.
Blackness was haunting the corners of her mind again, seemingly waiting for when she least expected it. Her consciousness was fading, her comprehension lost. Her shoulders were floating, her feet no longer dragging in the dirt. Darkness was clawing, creeping, swimming towards her. It meant to swallow her.
"No. Please! I'm not ready! I don't want to leave!"
She couldn't see anything, only shadows. She felt a heaviness, the darkness enveloping her in a determined, unwilling grip.
Eve tried to move her arms, her head.
"Gally! Please don't leave me!"
The last thing she felt before she was gone again was a soft breath on her face. Lips pressed gently on her forehead.
"I won't give up on you, Eve, I promise,"
Gally's voice was suffocated in the gloom. The emptiness was all there was.
Gally was gone. So was Eve.
It was quiet in the hut, nothing but the wind whistling through the tree branches. Gally sat by the bed, leaned back against the wall. His eyes focused on the dirty floor at his feet.
Eve lay beside him, silent and statuesque, the tube still in her arm. The bag hooked above her was nearly empty.
She had taken the blood. There had been no issues.
Gally's breath was raspy in his throat, emotions raw in his mind.
Eve was safe, for now.
Neither Clint nor Jeff had not been able to confirm anything. The only thing Gally had been given was a moment of quiet by Eve's side. Everyone else had been sent back to their jobs, normalcy the best thing for rattled minds. Alby was of the thought that he needed to get everyone back into a routine before panic took over. Michael was gone, so there was no more threat to the Glader's life, no more than usual.
Gally tapped his fingers against his thigh, his eyes glued to the floor. He couldn't look at her. She was too quiet, too still.
It was as if she was dead, lifeless right beside him.
He had seen her in this bed before, multiple times; climbing trees was not an easy feat. Eve had sustained her fair share of scrapes and bruises. Even when she had damaged her shoulder, she had still been awake and noisy.
Gally bit his lip aimlessly.
She had been so noisy. Screaming and crying while Gally had tried to tend to her. It had annoyed him, enraged him. But she had been alive, awake and well.
He had taken that for granted.
Now here she was, on death's door. He wanted more than anything that she would yell at him, tell him how much pain she felt.
As he sat there, in between panicked fear and blissful ignorance by avoiding looking at Eve, Gally thought back to when she had first come to the Glade. A girl after seven boys, a definite change to the way of the Glade. Gally was sure that it was a bad thing. By changing the pattern they had all become accustomed to, this girl was a bad omen.
He had looked down on her, disgusted by how useless she appeared to be. It had taken him ages, or so he thought, to teach her how he wanted work done. Even when she did it right, he had still found a reason to reprimand her. Alby had told him over and over again that he was creating a problem where there was none.
Gally saw Eve as a problem, so therefore, she was.
But slowly, over time, Gally had come to see that Eve was just as useful as any other member of the Glade. And that, in actuality, she had been all along. Looking back at it, Gally could not help but feel proud that Eve had taken all his abuse and still never stopped trying. It pained him to think of all the words he had said to her. Even more to think of the ones he had said about her. She had been bad news, but that didn't give him a right to treat her so poorly.
How he had ended up knowing her better than all of the other boys amazed him. How had he deserved that?
He grimaced at the thought of that night. Pleasure had taken a back seat to necessity on his part. Assuming Eve had been sent up here for procreation had truly been an unjustified idea. A ridiculous notion that he had insisted on being addressed. He had been so desperate to find a use for this girl in the Glade that he had resorted back to animal instinct.
Eve had been brave even then. She had hated the idea, especially when a choice had been given to her: her choice of mate. Gally could only imagine now how he would have felt in that situation. Even in her fear, Eve had agreed and Gally had been her choice. After all his degradation, she had chosen him.
It was because of his constant low opinion of her that Eve had soon begun to adopt it. She had grown more and more worried, paranoid that any incident would somehow be her fault.
Gally remembered clearly the day that the sixteenth member of the Glade had come up in the Box. Gally could see Eve's face in his mind's eye. The fear and confirmation that had entered her eyes that day. How quickly she had turned and run.
He had wanted to go after her, comfort her. But Newt had gone instead, calmed Eve down in a way that he knew he could not have. Even then, he had gotten angry with her, jealous that Newt had done something for her that he could not have.
Always angry, always blaming.
Gally squeezed his eyes shut, tears stinging his cheeks.
He didn't deserve Eve. It was finally clear to him.
After a long moment, Gally opened his eyes and turned to her. This precious soul that he could not live without. Her skin did not look as sickly blue as it had before. Even her lips were flushed, no longer purple.
Gally moved his hand, shaking with fear, gently over the bed to rest on her shoulder. She was warm to the touch.
He gasped, catching himself from spilling more tears. He gripped it and bowed his head, squeezing his eyes shut.
"I'm sorry, Eve. I'm so sorry," He took another shuddering breath and bit his lip. Stop crying, shucking shank! He shook himself and looked up at her again. Just seeing her there calmed him.
"I'm sorry for everything, everything I said and everything I did. You didn't deserve any of it. I wish I could take it back, you know? Take it all back and start again. To see you in that Box and not make you into something you're not. That wasn't fair. It wasn't!" He felt himself getting angry at himself. Angry that he couldn't turn the clock back. Furious that he knew he didn't have the nerve to say any of this if Eve were awake.
Hopefully, she could hear him, understand him.
He ran his thumb over her collarbone.
"I'm sorry, Eve. I hope you know that,"
Eve's eyelid twitched, her breathing hitched.
Gally froze. He stared at her, watching to see if anything happened.
Had she heard him? He leaned in, quivering.
"Eve?"
Her eyelids fluttered, her tongue flicked over her lips.
She was waking up!
Gally fought the urge to shake her, force her eyes open. She was waking up, right in front of him.
"Eve? It's Gally. I'm right here, can you hear me?"
He kept his hand on her shoulder but did not shake her. She was so warm, delightfully warm. She had been so cold before.
Eve moved her mouth, trying to speak.
Gally leaned in closer, his eyes wide and watching.
Eve blinked, her eyes opening for but a second.
"Gally?"