Different | The Maze Runner / Newt ¹ ✓

{3.6}

I scrambled to Newt, who was already unconscious on the floor. I dropped to my knees and pulled his head into my lap. Brushing his hair out of his eyes, I tried to locate the source of the bleeding. As carefully as I could, I tilted his face and found a bump on the side of his head with splatters of blood painting the blond locks red.

"Gally!" Thomas yelled just as I started to rip a strip of my shirt to bind Newt's head. "What're you doing?!"

Hands shaking, I quickly wrapped the cloth around his forehead and secured it with a tight knot. My day as a Med-jack taught me that the best thing I could do for now was try and stop the bleeding.

"You shut your shuck face, Thomas," Gally shouted, voice venomous. "You shut up! I know who you are, but I don't care anymore. I can only do what's right."

I looked up just in time to see Gally reach back and rip the final board loose. As soon as the wood hit the floor, the glass of the window exploded like a firework of splintery shards. Reaching up, I yanked whoever was closest to me to the floor, instructing over the noise for the three boys to cover their faces. Once I was sure they were protected, I pulled Newt's limp body closer to me and ducked my head down.

I didn't dare look up. There was a Griever trying to squeeze its way inside- that much I knew without seeing. I could hear the horrible mechanic whirs and clicks and guttural groans as it tried to work its way into the Homestead.

My eyes moved upward without permission. The Griever's metal arm was reaching out toward Newt and I, trying to grab onto us. The claw at the end snapped open and closed as it neared my face. A terrified, mangled scream escaped my lips as I kicked my legs, trying to scoot myself and the unmoving body in my arms away from the monster. I wasn't going to let either of us die tonight.

Then Gally started speaking again, and in a way he rescued us. The Griever paused as if to listen to him talk, trying to writhe its body further into the building.

"No one ever understood!" he shouted over the noise of the sluggish creature and the wall ripping to pieces. "No one ever understood what I saw, what the Changing did to me! Don't go back to the real world, Thomas! You don't ... want ... to remember!"

Gally's frightened eyes met Thomas's for a short moment, and I watched in absolute trepidation as he turned and dove onto the Griever. I let out a shout as all of its arms immediately grasped onto his limbs, making escape impossible. The boy's body sank into its flesh. The monster receded from the giant hole in the Homestead and began darting back to the Maze.

While Thomas ran to the gaping hole, I stayed on the ground in shock. My eyes were wide as they could be as I stared at nothing. My mind couldn't wrap around what had just happened.

It was only when someone started taking Newt's body from me that I was brought back to reality. My head snapped up to see Garret pulling him up, saying something about needing to find the Med-jacks. I was barely registering his words. However, I found myself nodding and taking great effort to stand.

I was in some sort of shocked trance as I followed Garret aimlessly around the Homestead. He was holding Newt like a baby, arms tucked beneath his knees and on his back. I was vaguely aware of us stopping occasionally to speak to a Glader about Jeff or Clint's whereabouts.

Somehow we found them and Newt was laying on a bed as Jeff tended to his wound. "There's not much we can do now- just wait till he wakes up and see how he is."

I sat on the edge of the mattress with my eyes on the floor. The voices were background noise as new sounds took over, and snippets of images flashed in my mind. Voices echoed in my skull and seemed to bounce around in my brain.