FOREVER. newt

twenty. trust me

WICKED FACILITY
three years before maze insertion

A knock. Two knocks. Three knocks on the wooden door, and the thirteen year old girl remains on her bed, refusing to do anything since she knew what was gonna happen.

It was like any other day. Ava would come knocking in her door, she'd refuse to answer, Ava would get a WICKED guard to unlock it for her, Ava would sit at the edge of her bed and try to convince her to get her ass up and work, Nini would refuse, and Ava would pretend to understand and leave; only to come back the next day and repeat the entire process.

But Nini sometimes wondered— how long would it take until the Doctor couldn't get enough of her refusing? What would Ava do?

The girl had already expected what happened next. The door unlocking, Ava entering with a tray of breakfast, the WICKED guard standing at the edge of the door incase Nini tries to do anything funny. It was monotonous and Nini was starting to get tired of it— but she was far too pissed to let Ava know that she actually wanted to start doing something.

Ava sighs, placing the tray on the table.

"Nini, if you're refusing to work for us, you're breaking an oath you swore to."

Not looking up and keeping her teeth clenched from the anger, Nini buries herself into her pillow. "He isn't even immune. Why did you have to put him in?"

The tried sigh comes out from the Doctor again. "Because that's his whole purpose, Nini. That's why he's here. You understand that, don't you?"

"You could've given him a job instead. I have a job. Why can't he?"

"You are not the same, Nini."

Nini furrows her eyebrows in disbelief, getting her face out of the soft pillow to glare at the woman she was slowly starting to despise. "I could've thought him or something."

"Nini, you're being unrealistic right now." Ava says sternly, trying to not lash out at the girl. She was young and didn't know much, after all. Plus, Nini was the biggest hope they had for finding the cure. "We are focusing on a bigger problem. Would you really let subject A5 interfere in our goal to save humanity?"

"He has a name." Nini replies sternly, still pissed off at the woman. "His name is Newt."

Ava tries to think of a different approach since Nini didn't seem to back down. Then, it pops up in her head— the best idea that she's ever thought of.

"The earlier we find the cure, the earlier we get them out of those mazes." Ava smiled, her pearly white teeth making Nini want to shoot herself in her foot. "Now... we wouldn't make any process without you, right? That's why I'm trying to convince you to come with us and help, Nini. Do you think this isn't hard for me too?"

"But you don't have to be so mean about everything!" Nini hisses, with Ava backing up in fear of the young girl.

"These Doctors, employees, everyone are survivors, Nini. I know you were young—terribly young—but surely you remember the awful state of the world after the virus spread and reached us out here. Things weren't supposed to..."

She paused, and something in her eyes told Nini that she'd said something she hadn't meant to. "But my point...the world became a place of horror and death and madness. By nature...by definition... anyone who survived those first waves of sheer terror had to be a little hardened. Tougher than normal. It's what helped them survive. The weak—they either died or will soon."

Nini shut up.

"So yes," she continued. "Most of the people here aren't the nicest you'll ever meet. They don't have the time or the inclination to worry about feelings. Okay? They've seen the depths of hell out there in the world, and they're ready to do anything and everything possible to find a cure and stop those horrors. And you're just going to have to accept that."