The Misfire: Book 2 (Newt || A TST and TDC Fanfiction)

4. Memories: Gradually, Rapidly

Like a great torrent of water, all my memories came back.

Images and moments of joy, misery, fury, and love, all flashed before my very eyes.

Those nightmares and dreams I had in the glade; they were not just random hallucinations. They were all fragments of my past.

Now that I already confirmed that they were really memories, everything started to add up.

They all came flooding at once; my life underground, WCKD taking me away, experimenting on my brain, torturing me if I refused to obey, changing my name, Thomas saving me just in time before the crazy, infected Dr. Fitrei almost killed me, watching my friends being treated like lab rats, and taking part in the completion of the maze. I realized how selfish I was for being too scared to fight for what I believed was right. They hurt me. But it became too much once they started to hurt the people that I really cared for.

I had experienced tremendous pain before; mentally, physically and emotionally. And all I could do was endure and hope they would just kill me instead.

It was unbearable. They only wanted my brain. I was supposed to be dead long ago. But WCKD somehow became obsessed with my gift.

They needed it.

I was locked up in a room for months, isolated from anyone, only meeting doctors who'd only do more tests on me. Deprived from physical affection so much had made me learn never to trust anyone.

Then came the pleasant ones; being introduced to Thomas and Teresa, sneaking to another area of the facility, and meeting the others. It took a while before I started to enjoy the company of kids my age. The bonding times we had were my only escape from the depressing life here in WCKD.

But as time progressed, I began to develop something more than just a "friendly" feeling for a particular boy.

A boy who I was willing to risk my life for despite him not feeling the same. I was so ready, so willing to do anything for him. It was funny how emotions could easily toy with your mind.

Memories could be so beautiful, but the emotions that were forever embedded from those just made me feel so hollow.

As soon as the maze was complete, I was again forcefully isolated from them. I was locked up again, forced to study the potential subjects for the trials. My heart was torn, finding out Newt was not immune. But I couldn't give him a cure, since I needed them as well.

I never got the chance to talk to him again or say goodbye before he was sent to the maze. So I just watched him through the screens, promising to get him out of that hell hole.

Then a new subject arrived--Erin.

Erin was taken from a fellow who was known to lure immunes and exchange them for supplies and weapons. She was the newest subject but was immediately sent up into the maze three months after WCKD took her in. The reason why she was put in the Maze was never disclosed to me. So I was so furious and jealous that she was sent up, and not me.

It wasn't until later that I found out why she was chosen as the next variable.

There was a sudden flu outbreak at the glade and was estimated to eliminate atleast 90% of the boys. Erin was no expert, but amongst the newer subjects, she had the best medical skills. WCKD realized that this Maze was already fucked anyways, so why not just put a twist on it and send more than 1 girl?

After all, the second and all-female maze was already doing a hundred times better.

I watched Erin's attempted assault and suicide through the screens, and I was unable to do anything about it.

I missed her even more. She was the strongest and bravest girl I've ever met- well she was the only strong and brave girl I've met. It was just too surreal how she was gone in an instant. And it was all my fault. And I never told anyone, fearing that they would no longer want to be my friends.

They only knew that Erin got killed by a griever but they didn't know that the blame was on my own hands.

But Erin wasn't the reason why I badly wanted to get in. Because before I even knew her, I already wanted in.

For Newt.

When Newt tried to kill himself, I stared at the screens helplessly, screaming and begging him not to do it, thinking he could somehow hear me. Realizing that he fell from those walls, broke my heart even more. I was devastated, knowing the boy I loved tried to end his life. That time, I decided to participate in the trials despite my condition. Thomas was the first who tried to stop me, even kissing me as a desperate attempt to make me stay.

But my decision was final.

George had been right all along; I did volunteer to go in, thinking that I could somehow save Newt and make him feel better about life. It was indeed a foolish and stupid decision, but the damage was already done.

Ignoring the risks, I bargained, allowing WCKD to take full control of my gift, just so they would put me in the maze. I knew the exit, I knew the code, I knew most of the events that would happen, but WCKD was preventing me from remembering those.

I had to wait for almost a year before my turn to be sent up finally came.

They promised I would still have my memories and told me that all I needed to do was pretend I was just another brainwashed subject, but the next thing I knew, I woke up in a box, knowing nothing but my name.

If I had my memories with me back then, we could have escaped the maze the minute I got out from that damn box.

Every time I was at the maze with Minho and Ben, unusual things happened like sudden griever attacks and unsynchronised Changings.

Now I knew those were all means to prevent me from nearing a potential way out, because the moment that would ever happen, the trials would come to an unexpected, unsatisfying finish. But WCKD had to be careful enough to allow these alterations to only distract and hurt me, but not cost my life.

Afterall, they still needed me, for phase fucking two.

And what frightened me the most, was that I had no idea what the next phase was exactly about, apart from the fact that some of us would never make it.

Before the maze, I was so desperate to go in, but once I was already put there, the only thing I cared for was to get out as soon as possible. Apparantly, my clairvoyance hasn't caused any impact at all. In spite of having an unusual ability, I never made a difference to the trials.

Confusion, resentment and loss was all I felt in the glade. Newt was already standing infront, but I always pushed him away, letting my stupid, unstable emotions take control. I couldn't remember him, but the moments we shared together were strangely familiar.

That's why.

I was inlove with him since before the maze. I was supposed to save him. But it turns out that I was the one who needed to be saved.

It was a lot more painful knowing that you failed. That you could have saved a lot of your friends from perishing if you had just stopped being such a useless coward. I had seen and done things I would be sick of, that would follow me for the rest of my life and would only bring regret and pain---pain as the punishment for all I've done. And what made it worse was that there was no escape.

Sometimes, memories are the worst kind of torture.