IT STARTED WITH A MAZE - Newt x Reader (F)

- BETRAYED -

"Get down!" Minho yells.

His voice slices through the chaos like a whip, and all of us instinctively throw ourselves to the ground just as the world shatters behind us. The second explosion hits with a deafening roar - an eruption of sound and violence that kicks dust and heat into the air like a living monster rising from the earth. It rattles the bones in my chest and steals the air from my lungs. I crash behind a jagged outcrop of rock, my palms scraping against the dry, brittle surface as I brace for another impact.

My ears are ringing. I taste blood - bit my tongue. "What do we do?" I cry out, breathless, coughing on the dust that's thick in the air now. Everything smells like metal and fire and panic.

"We have no weapons!" Minho yells, checking around the rock, his shoulders tense, his body coiled like a spring. Ready to run. Or fight.

The earth trembles again with another dull thud, distant but getting closer. "Do we help them?" Newt says, and his voice - quieter, more uncertain - grabs my attention.

I stare at him.

Not because I have an answer. But because the truth is written all over his face.

We can't just sit here.

But we might die if we don't.

The dry land around the camp is burning. Fire claws its way across the brittle grass and patches of scorched brush, eating through the camp like it's made of paper. The flames glow orange against the black smoke that's already rising in thick, choking columns. Tents collapse into ash. Shadows of people running flicker through the firelight, silhouettes screaming and stumbling through smoke, too fast to make sense of. Some don't get back up.

The heat is unbearable. It warps the air, bending light like everything's melting.

Above us, the helicopters hover - three of them now - dark insects with blades slicing the air to pieces. One of them angles lower, tilting sideways with a sickening whirr of metal and power. The floodlights on its belly snap on and sweep across the ground, illuminating the hell unfolding below. Then, masked men begin to drop from its undercarriage, rappelling down on thick ropes, one after another like precision strikes. Guns gleam in their hands.

They hit the ground and fan out. No warning. No hesitation.

They shoot.

I see a man - one of the Right Arm fighters - raise his hands.

They shoot him anyway.

Screams rip through the smoke. Real, raw, blood-curdling screams that turn my stomach and freeze my spine.

I duck back behind the rock, hands pressed to my ears. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to see it. But I have to. I force myself to peek again, the air tearing at my face as another helicopter drops lower.

This one doesn't release soldiers.

It releases death.

The bomb it drops whistles as it falls, sharp and strange and almost beautiful before the world breaks again. The earth rises in a geyser of fire and dirt and people. Bodies are thrown like rag dolls. I scream. I don't even realize it until I hear myself.

Thomas.

Where is he?

I whip my head around, looking through the smoke and chaos and flashing lights. People are scattering. Running. Collapsing. Screaming. "Oh my god," I whisper.

The camp is practically gone.

Flames are crawling up the cliffsides. The tents are shreds of canvas. Medical gear and supplies litter the ground, burning, melting. And the helicopters. they just keep circling. Watching. Like vultures waiting to pick through the ruins.