dandelions || 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘩𝘰 (COMPLETED)

x - the attack

until it happened again, this time considerably closer.

she stood up slowly, trying her best to remain calm. she supposed it could just be chuck and felt ridiculous for being so paranoid — until she heard some leaves rustle what felt like mere yards behind her.

and she turned, dreading what she was about to see. it was obvious it wasn't the creature she'd assumed it was minutes prior, and the last hope she had clutch of was it being one of the gladers trying to pull a joke on her — if it was that, it wasn't proving very funny.

and then she finished her 180 degree turn, but whatever mental preparation she'd undergone on the way round clearly hadn't been enough for what she saw.

it was ben.

"h-hey, ben," she stuttered slightly. his face looked exhausted, as if he hadn't slept in weeks, and his demeanour contrasted remarkably from his usual bubbly attitude. whatever had happened to him was not a natural occurrence.

and a hundred thoughts came flooding back to her at once, like water rushing through a broken dam. grievers. beetle blades. 'wicked is good'. the glade. the gladers. minho. the maze. escaping. the box. wicked.

but every one came back to ben as he lunged for her. she felt it as if it was happening in slow motion, the world around her freezing as she flew through the air. ben coughed up an oozing purple substance, pinning her to the ground and gripping her neck tightly.

he pressed his thumbs into her windpipe, briefly cutting off her breath, but she was a relatively strong girl. she clutched the stick still in her palm so tight her knuckles turned white and bashed the side of ben's head with it.

she hadn't given him a powerful enough blow to knock him out, and lyn only realised that when she started running with him swiftly following suit. running was the only thought making her head pound now. running as far and as fast as she could.

her speed and agility would usually have been a significant advantage, but contending with ben, there was little to set them apart. countless tree roots, rocks and logs attempted to trip her up, but she took no notice and was only focused on escape.

and then he caught her, on top of her on the grass once again.

without realising, a blood-curdling scream was released like a banshee from the girl's mouth. she counted on the fact that someone would hear her pleas for help and prise ben off her — if they didn't, she'd be killed by a boy she thought was a friend, in the most undignified way possible.

and then: the changing.

it was the changing that had made him look deranged. act murderous. go savage.

the world froze around her as she felt her body relax. the tense disposition let out of her body like a balloon deflating. she was slowly forgetting how to breathe; everything in her mind was slowly blackening into a thick, dark fog.

• • •

she didn't remember what happened next. newt had told her that once the first scream stopped and no other came, every glader had scoured the deadheads for a sign of her. she hadn't made it easy for them, not letting another noise escape after the initial shriek. according to him, minho had also heard the commotion all the way from the maze (he was already making his way back and was relatively close to the glade) and raced back as fast as he could. eventually they'd found her unconscious, a motionless heap underneath a remorseful, uncontrollable ben.

she'd been comatose for a few hours and by the time she'd awoken from the trance, the sun had already set. the doors had closed.

lyn sat up slowly, the two med-jacks protesting at her attempt to do so. they lay her back down as she struggled to croak her words out. her throat felt scratchy and hoarse as she struggled to ask, "where's ben?"

the taller med-jack, jeff, gave her a somber look as clint told her what she dreaded hearing. "he's been banished. he's been left out in the maze, greenie."

she was destroyed.

only a matter of hours ago, lyn and ben had gotten along like lifelong friends and now suddenly he'd been thrown out cruelly into the maze. granted, he tried to kill her, but none of that mattered to lyn; it wasn't him. it was the creators — the foul, loathsome creators.

and then she cried once again. she cried for the same reasons she had last time, only with the addition of ben and his imminent death. because like chuck said, no one makes it out of the maze alive.

lyn closed her eyes and drifted into slumber once again. it was all too much for her to bear: too much for her to cope with.

• • •

when she woke up again, she was back in minho's bed. she assumed newt had grown tired of accommodating her in his own room and decided he'd leave her there since she wasn't awake to protest; but the shadowy figure on the end of her bed told her otherwise.

the silhouette had its elbows on its knees, its face nestled into its palms serenely.

"minho?" lyn just about managed to squeeze out of her futile vocal chords.

the figure lifted its head and turned suddenly, squinting in the dim light. and, as predicted, it was minho.

"i'm glad you're alright, shebean." he whispered, shuffling over carefully to embrace her while trying not to flatten her legs.

if a girl ben had known three days was completely broken by his death, she couldn't imagine how one of his closest friends must have been feeling. he wrapped his arms around her neck tightly and pulled her head against his chest. "it's okay, lyn. i'm here now, and you'll be alright. i'll protect you even if i die doing it; i promise."

promises. lyn couldn't specifically name one that had been made between her and another human before, but she knew they were easily broken. yet somehow minho's promise had something about it that both of them knew would last a long time, voluntarily or not.

and by making that one promise — by saying those two words — he'd just formed a bond that couldn't be broken, even when fate tugged and tore them apart. they were a pair never destined to be together, never designed to be together; yet there they were, helplessly drawn to each other. but the odds would always be anything but in their favour.