Questions // Mazerunner

5-In which Maddy wakes up to a nightmare

Edited
Sweat. Tears. Turning. All was silent but for her. She was tossing, unable to think, unable to wake, unable to save herself. There was nothing but her and those inside her head.

The wind whistled through the hut, an eerie moaning that echoed in each glader's very heart. And another moaning joined it, a spooky, strange song. It whimpered and howled in pain, screaming in panic, crying for help. Maddy was alone with her thoughts and her screams as all the rest slept.

In her head, in this strange nightmare world that had wrapped itself around her, it was hot. The sun burnt through the earth down right to the core. There were no plants. There were no trees. And most of all, there were no people. All around her, she could see nothing, but her own hands, her own feet in front of her. She could hear nothing but her own breathing.

But the smell permeated everything. Burnt, raw leather, baked in the sun until there was nothing left of it but cracked, dried, shrivelled up uselessness. And the smell was everywhere of fire and drought, of thirst and hunger, and most of all death.

She could almost sense a second presence behind her, almost see it's cold, dark hood and thin knife, poised to attack. But waiting.

She began to walk. Where, she did not know. But she walked. For a long time there was a monotonous nothing, dreary mile after dreary mile. And then there came a cliff, deep brown, almost glowing as the sun hut it. Dropping into nothingness, it stood proud against the ground, raised far up above.

Maddy sat heavily, feet dangling over the edge, kicking tiny bits of the cliff away, bit by bit. She never heard them hit the ground. Perhaps they never did. The thing was still behind her, standing, watching, but never moving.

But now it wasn't the only other thing there. Looking to the side of her, Maddy saw a boy. His hair was cut short, sandy brown and it ruffled in the warm breeze. As he looked out onto the plains far below, he mouthed three words. Over and over. But Maddy could not tell what they were because he was looking far away from her, wistfully off into the horizon and the things that he could not reach without falling. Three words.

Gently, Maddy brushed his arm with hers, getting his attention. He turned to her, slowly, as though he didn't want to stop looking at the dead plains and the barren land. Maybe that was all he saw anyway. Maybe he couldn't see her. But he looked at her, straight in the eye, and he kept mouthing the words, on and on. And slowly, second by second, word by word, she found what he was saying.

"I."
"Am."

"I am," Maddy mused to herself, trying to find the last word, and as she did so, she could hear a footstep approach from behind her. Sharply she turned, but there was no one, nothing. Even the dark, dead thing was gone. When she turned back, the brown-eyed boy was gone, and instead there was another boy. His hair was darker, like that of a bear, strong and wise. And he too looked off into the distance, gazing at the things they would never know. "He is something and you are something, but what are you?" And to her surprise, he answered.

"We are dead, or soon to be. We are gone, or long to be. We are silent, or hope to be." And with that, he fell apart, disintegrating slowly, unraveling into the still air until he was all pulled apart and the wind whisked him off the cliff into uncertainty. And again, there was a footstep, and again there was no one there.

But as she watched, as she pondered, something began to change. First, it was a plant, sprouting green and hopeful in the cracked earth. Then a rabbit, hopping tiredly on it's own. Soon, a fox, and a tree and a person. And as she watched, they started to sing, ever so quietly.

"Oh no, here we go."

The haunting melody wrapped itself around her, lulling her into security.

"Everything is changing."

As she drifted back into darkness, she didn't hear the last words, see the other people join, hear the harmonies and the unity and the raw, unadulterated hope.

"There's a storm, a storm inside of a teacup. And it coming, oh, it's coming for us."

The song strengthened until it soared into the air, each note strong and powerful.

"Here we go, down we go, time to go to sleep."

A solitary voice sang, the last note in a soon-forgotten song.

"Tick Tock."