When We're Older- The Maze Runner (Newt)

sleepless night

My state of unconsciousness did nothing to help relieve my sleep deprivation.

It was like I was sleeping, but my mind was awake, playing a terrible slideshow of the worst possible things that could happen, or have already happened. This time, I relived Chuck's death, only I was behind the trigger. I was staring at all of my friends, not being able to control the actions I was making. It's like I was trapped in a glass box, pounding on it, but my body was still on autopilot. From Chuck's terrible death, it went to Thomas and those crazy monsters that we ran away from not too long ago. I dreamt that he never made it out, and everyone was now relying on me to make all the decisions. And I had no idea what to do. All the while, I thought I was going to wake up, but my mind kept going...torturing me.

Minho was next. He was running down a long menacing hallway with a Griever chasing him. The Runner reached a dead end, and the Griever got him. I could hear his screams, but the whole time, it was like I was the monster. I was the one chasing him. Again, I was in a glass box, pounding on the walls to be let out. But nobody heard my cries for help.

The last part of the dream was where I held a knife in my hand, advancing towards Newt, who was scrunched into a little ball in the corner of a white room. Nothing was on the walls, there were no windows, no beds, no doors. Just white. He was crying, pleading for me not to hurt him. I was in my own body this time. Not as a crazy monster, or an old friend, but it was me. As much as I tried to keep myself from hurting the boy...my Newt, I did. At the first splatter of blood, my eyes finally snapped open, and I jolted up, trying my hardest not to scream.

Just like that, I was back to reality, laying on the dusty concrete floor of the abandoned parking lot.

I let out a harsh breath and wiped the accumulated sweat off of my forehead, backing myself up to lean against a broken piece of rubble. Everyone around me was asleep, silently having dreams of their own, or just drifting into a black abyss of nothingness until they woke up. I looked down at Newt, and saw that he was fully asleep, and not faking it this time. I sighed of relief when I saw that he was okay, but I couldn't get the images of me holding the knife out of my brain.

As I looked at him, my bottom lip began to tremble. I brought my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around them, stuffing my face into my legs and letting the tears silently flow down my cheeks. My breathing was staggered as I pinched my eyes shut and relived everything that's happened within this week. It's all gone so fast. One minute, Thomas is coming up in the Box, and then the next, we were running away from shucking zombies. Possibly the thing that hurt me so much was how much I've changed.

Reminiscing back to my first few days at the Glade, I was nothing but an innocent girl with a strange sense of humor, living in a strange place with a whole bunch of strange guys. That's the word that came to mind a month ago. 'Strange'. Little did I know that my sense of humor would be pushed so far off the pier that I would hardly be able to laugh, let alone crack a joke to bring other's joy. Instead of telling people not to worry, they were now worrying about me, and I had no energy left to tell them not to. I've changed, and not for the better. I think the only thing that kept me going was the sandy-blonde-haired boy that slept soundly next to me, and the fact that I couldn't give up without seeing my friends get to safety. Or the Right Arm—whoever those people were.

I sniffled and lifted my head, only to see the silhouette of a person sitting up. I almost yelped and woke someone up, but then the figure turned around, and the moonlight lit up his features.

"Mae?" Thomas whispered, wiping his sleepy eyes, "What are you doing awake?"

I wiped my nose, wishing for once that there was no moon, so he wouldn't have a chance to see my reddened eyes and my pale face. But the moon lit up Newt and I, allowing Thomas to have a full view of my distress.