dandelions || 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘩𝘰 (COMPLETED)

vii - the tour

THE TOUR
-
"and i've heard of a love that comes once in a lifetime."

• • •

          ALBY WALKED THE GIRL OVER to where minho was standing, just outside the homestead, and then wandered off towards some gladers who seemed to be in a heated verbal argument.

"sleep well, shebean?" minho turned to lyn and asked.

the girl, wanting to have as little interaction with the boy as possible, simply replied, "yeah."

"doesn't seem like it. did ya wake up on the wrong side of the bed?"

"shut up. i'm here for a tour, not to make small talk."

minho laughed at her snarky comment. "lighten up a bit. now come on, we'll start over there," he told her calmly, pointing over to a little glass square in one part of the ivy-covered wall.

~

"this is why you don't go in the maze, alright? take a look." he took a step back from the glass cut-out and placed his hand on lyn's shoulder as she stepped up onto a rock so she could peek through the murky window, and they waited there for what lyn guessed was ten minutes. she was about to walk away and accuse minho of simply trying to make her stand there for an hour like an idiot when she felt minho turn her back around and start to get excited.

a sinister silhouette stalked closer to the clouded sheet of glass. even before it became a clear image, lyn heard the grinding sound of it pacing down the stone corridor. it kept getting closer and closer, and lyn could just about make out spikes sticking out of its back, making it appear as if it'd been stabbed with a spear through its torso fifty times, its grub and slime oozing down its body leaving a vile-looking trail behind its chilling shadow. she couldn't help but imagine the awful stench that must have been ensuing the creature. every few metres it rolled up into a ball and the girl felt obliged to bring her hands up to her face and rub her eyes to make sure she wasn't imagining it, it seemed so impossibly ludicrous.

whatever vulgar animal she'd laid her eyes upon was not natural, she knew that much. and whoever designed it, she decided, was an insane, sick psychopath looking for nothing but destruction. any normal person would never in a million years dream of throwing a group of teenagers into a hopeless situation of being trapped in a maze with a merciless, spider-like creature. but then again, there they were. that's fake. it must be, she told herself in her head.

minho looked at her as if she'd said something, but looked away immediately when he saw her lips hadn't moved from their trembling position that seeing the monster had put them in.

"what d'ya think?"

"it's... ugly."

"the window must be a mirror then." minho laughed at his own joke, causing lyn to roll her eyes yet again at his immaturity.

"ha, ha, ha, i'm laughing so much right now," she told him with the straightest face she could manage. "and to be honest, at first i thought i was just looking at a picture of you."

this time minho was the one to roll his eyes and he crossed his arms as he did so. lyn noticed he crossed his arms a lot. "it's a griever. they're always out in the maze at night — sometimes during the day too. and that, shebean, is why you will not be making a trip outside the glade anytime soon."

lyn felt slightly startled by that new information. "what do they do to you? do they eat you?" her eyes widened at the thought of one of those beasts gobbling up a human, and it sent a shiver down her spine.