Different | The Maze Runner / Newt ¹ ✓

{2.1}

"Will you be okay?" the boy asks me, almost choking on the words. "When I'm gone, I mean."

"No," I admit after a little bit, my voice small. "I'll never be okay until I have you by my side again. We are partners in crime."

He nods. Then he moves closer to me, taking his tiny hand in mine. He gives it a comforting squeeze but I pull away, disgusted.

"Your hands are sweaty," I tell him. He laughs and wipes them on his jeans.

"You're going too, you know," he informs me solemnly. "They're sep-ar-a-ting us." He says the word like it took a lot of thought to pronounce it right.

"Why?" I ask, feeling a lump grow in my throat and tears build up in my eyes. "I don't want to leave you, or Mommy. I already lost Daddy. I can't lose you, too!"

I cover my face with my hands and drop the bear. The boy wraps his chubby arms around me and leans his head on my shoulder. Then he bends down and I feel the soft fluffiness of the stuffed bear against my arm. Peaking through my fingers, I see the boy has picked it up off the floor and is settling it on my lap in a sitting position with its back resting against my stomach.

"You won't lose us," he says. "You'll never lose us. We will always be with you. Right" - he taps the place where my heart is - "here."

"Always?" I ask, wiping my eyes and nose with my wrist.

"Partners in crime, remember?" he smiles and I get a good look at his face. The mud-brown hair. The dark eyes. The pale skin. There's no doubting who it is, even though he's so much younger. There's even the scar on his small hand to prove it.

Thomas.

Everything morphs in front of my eyes. The plain bedroom turns into one made of wood. Thomas suddenly ages about nine years and the bear disappears from my lap. I look down, noticing my body is almost completely transparent. When I put my hand up to my face, I can see the floor through it.

I look around. I seem to be in one of the rooms of the Homestead. Thomas is sitting beside me, but he's facing the other way, his back to me. I notice Minho by the door, leaning against the wall with his hand over his mouth like he's thinking deeply. Chuck's standing off to the side, looking nervous. Clint is kneeling in front of the bed. I try to sit further into it but hit a pair of legs.

The person lying in the bed, under about three blankets but also with a damp cloth over their forehead, is me. It's the first time I've ever seen myself. My heart-shaped face is sickly pale. My skin is white and papery thin, my veins blue and green and purple underneath. My mouth is slightly open. I do not make a sound. The only sign I am alive is the unsteady rise and fall of my chest and the occasional shudder or twitch of my limbs.

Is this me, right now? Is this what all people see in the Changing? Themselves?

Someone bursts through the door and I turn to see Newt, looking stressed and tired. His hair is everywhere and I notice dark circles beneath his eyes.

"What's the plan?" Minho asks, voice cracking a bit. He clears his throat and tries to play it off strongly.

When Newt responds, he sounds like he hasn't drunk water in days, his voice hoarse and sore. "Calling a Gathering when she wakes up. That's when we'll run the trial against Thomas and Dylan's case."

"Case?" Minho repeats incredulously, eyebrows raising. "That's what you're calling going out into the Maze, risking their lives, saving Alby, and killing four Grievers? Sounds about right."

Newt sighs tiredly. "Those weren't my words. They're Gally's."

"Why the shuck are you listening to that klunk-for-brains when you are in charge?" Minho demands angrily. "Yeah. You. In charge. You run this place until Alby gets better. In case you forgot."