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

- ENTRIES -

It has been 3 days since we lost Minho.

My friends think he's alive. They said W.C.K.D took him. They say it like it's a comfort. Like knowing where he might be makes up for the fact that we let him slip through our fingers. One moment he was there - shouting at us to run - and the next he was just... gone.

Gone, like my mother.

Gone, like Chuck.

We've been regrouping. Those of us who didn't get taken or killed are licking our wounds in whatever patch of shade we can find. Some of us - only a few - are talking about going after WICKED. Talking about finding them in order to get Minho back. But most of the others... they just want to get to the 'safe haven' and forget all of this. As if that unrealistic place will fix what's broken. As if forgetting is even possible.

I don't blame them. I really don't. But I'm not one of them. I can't be.

Brenda gave me this journal. Said it was a thank you present, for saving her life. I have no idea where she got it from - the stained pages and length of charcoal - she didn't say. Just handed it over with this look in her eyes. I told her she isn't truly cured, just running on borrowed time. I didn't even help her. That it was my mother. My mother who put herself in the line of fire. My mother who isn't here anymore. Brenda hugged me. And I cried so hard I think it scared her.

I don't really know what this journal is supposed to be. She said to use it as an outlet. "Just write journal entries." A place to keep my thoughts. A place to put the things I can't say out loud. I'm not sure I'm ready for that. But I'll try.

I'm going to try and write in it every day. Just something. Even if it's small. Even if it's messy. Even if it hurts. Because it hurts so much.

I don't know.

~~~

It has been 28 days since we lost Minho.

Twenty-nine days of running, hiding, and barely breathing.

We're somewhere in the outskirts now - what used to be a desert town or maybe a military outpost, it's hard to tell. The buildings are all crumbling at the edges like they're ashamed to still be standing. Sand's gotten into everything. My boots. My ears. This journal. Every time the wind picks up, it howls like the earth itself is mourning.

Harriet and Vince left us just over two weeks ago. Said they changed their mind - had their own route to follow, their own people to protect. I didn't argue. But part of me wonders if they left because they couldn't stand to watch what a mess we were becoming. Part of me wonders if Vince - a man who I learned loved my mother very deeply - saw Mary Cooper in me.

I think we'll see them again. Maybe not soon. Maybe not in one piece. But I believe we will.

The rest of us - Thomas, Newt, Fry, Brenda, Jorge, and I - we're still here. Still together. Though it doesn't always feel like together. Everyone's on edge. Everyone's grieving - whether it's Minho, the Gladers who didn't make it, or the version of Teresa we thought we knew.

The betrayal still cuts. It's like I see her shadow every time I close my eyes. I keep replaying the moment she stood beside Ava Paige instead of with us. How her mouth moved with words that sounded like apologies, but felt like knives.

We're all fragmented. That's the only word I can think of. Like a mirror someone smashed in a fit of grief. Shattered, but still reflecting something. Some broken truth.

Newt's cut that I was frantic about scabbed over - it's taken a while to heal and still not as well as I wanted it to. I asked if he was picking at it. He said no. I ask if it hurts. He still says it's nothing. I believe him, because I want to. Newt and I have been quieter lately. But not in a bad way. More like... comforting silences. We share glances across the fire when no one's talking. He brushed my shoulder the other night when I was shivering, and then didn't say a word when I leaned into him. I didn't say a word either. We just sat there. Breathing.