monachopsis - maze runner

chapter 14

Chapter 14
Picking Through the Ashes

The morning after the attack, the pink sunrise was streaked with red. Smoke hung heavy in the air, choking anyone who tried to take a deep breath. Half the Glade hadn't slept. Instead they spent the late night and early morning staring at the open walls with bloodshot eyes, waiting for a second wave that never came.

After a meager breakfast with the supplies that hadn't been torched or trampled, Gally and the Builders staged a necessary coup. Florence had hardly spoken a word since Alby's death, and put up no fight when the Keeper of the Builders commandeered her job. She watched from the charred remains of Alby's bed as Teresa and a still unconscious Thomas were dragged into the Pit and locked away.

Morning turned to day and still she didn't move. Her fingertips traced up and down the scratches Alby left on her arms as he was pulled away. Florence was in the odd early stages of grief. Her eyes watered without warning, streaking her face with tears she didn't bother to wipe away. But her mind was stagnant, almost numb after the panicked frenzy of the night before.

It took Gally a good few hours of sneaking worried glances at her corpse-still figure in the distance to muster up the courage to approach her. Florence either didn't see him coming or pretended not to, because when he nudged her shoulder to get her attention she flinched away.

"Sorry...may I?" He gestured to what remained of the mattress, slightly tilted because one of the wooden support beams had been crushed. Florence didn't reply, but when Gally perched awkwardly on the corner of the bed she didn't ask him to leave. She didn't want him to. "I'm sorry about last night." Silence. "Do you wanna talk about it?" No. "Okay, um...I have a theory about what happened, do you wanna hear it?"

Florence stayed silent, but her head turned just slightly in his direction - progress. "I think the Grievers came for Thomas and Teresa, since all the bad shit that's happened started when they showed up. So maybe if they get what they came for, they'll leave us alone and everything can go back to the way it was." Florence didn't like where this was going. "If we Banish those two shanks tonight, the Maze might lock up again and we'll be safe. What do you think?"

"We can't go back to the way it was." The sound of her voice almost shattered him. It was scratchy and hollow, with only a ghost of the girl she once was.

"Don't say that, Flo. We still have some buildings left, we should have enough supplies to-"

"The buildings don't matter, Gally. We lost almost half of our boys." Gally sputtered out a half-formed retort, but he wasn't even sure which one of them he was trying to convince. It didn't matter anyway, because Florence's attention was already elsewhere - three boys were crouched around Thomas and Teresa's cell. She slipped off the bed and started towards them, then turned around to grumble "Stay there." Fumbling between rage that Florence was shutting him out and relief that she was up and moving, Gally said nothing. And he didn't follow her.

As she got closer, Florence was able to make out that the three boys were Newt, Minho, and Chuck; given how quickly they'd taken a liking to Thomas, she wasn't surprised. She softened her footsteps so they wouldn't hear her coming, and was able to catch a few snippets of their conversation.

"Gally's taken control," Newt spoke into the Pit. Teresa knew this already, after being unceremoniously stuffed into the cell a few hours ago, so Florence figured Thomas was awake. "He said we had a choice. Either join him, or get Banished at sundown with you."

"And the others agreed to that? Florence agreed to that?" So Thomas is awake.

"Flo shut down after the Grievers took Alby," Minho replied, hanging his head. He'd almost gone to check on Florence before Chuck dragged him to the Pit, but Gally beat him there. "Everyone else is scared shitless, and Gally was able to convince them that you're the reason everything went wrong."