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

- ONLY GETTING WORSE -

The surface hits like a wall. The pain is instant, all-consuming - a violent slam that rattles my bones. The water doesn't welcome me. It assaults me, grabs my limbs and hurls me downward. My eyes sting. My lungs convulse.

Down, down, down.

For a second I don't know which way is up.

But then instinct kicks in. I kick, hard, my legs burning, arms pulling against the crushing pressure until light begins to seep back in. My chest is on fire. But it reminds me I'm alive.

I break the surface like I've been reborn.

Air slams into my lungs as I gasp for it, coughing, sputtering. My ears are ringing so loud I can barely hear the splash behind me. The water stings - cold and heavy around my limbs - but I can breathe. That's all that matters right now. My head snaps up, hair plastered to my face, and I suck down another desperate breath like it's the first one I've ever taken.

My arms thrash as I try to stay afloat, muscles screaming. I'm clutching my ribcage instinctively - either something's bruised or maybe just pulled too far. Either way, it feels like everything inside me has been cracked and jostled. I don't know if it's from the fall or the sheer fear. Probably both.

I turn my head, wincing at the ache in my neck. The building looms above us, cold and skeletal in the light. And there, at the shattered window thirty stories up, a figure is staring down.

Janson.

Even from this far away, I can feel the heat of his glare. He's not shouting. Not moving. Just watching. A storm building behind his stillness.

The water around me ripples with movement. Newt surfaces to my left, coughing violently, his shoulders heaving as he wipes water from his eyes. His wet hair is a mess, plastered to his forehead. Thomas is just ahead of him, blood from a bang under his hairline.

"Newt-?" I half-swim toward him, trying to ignore the slicing burn in my side. "You okay?"

He nods, or tries to. "Coughing's better than not breathing," he rasps. He doesn't smile, but the comment's close enough to one.

To my right, Minho breaks the surface with a loud gasp, then a hiss of pain. He's cradling his left shoulder, teeth bared. "Holy shit," he growls. "That was not fun."

He glances around, and I can see it in his face-he's doing a head count just like I am. He spots me, then Newt, then Thomas. Relief softens his expression, just barely. "Is everyone alive?" I manage to ask, my voice hoarse and thin over the lap of water.

"I feel like death," Minho says with a wince, still clutching his arm, "but I guess that counts as yes."

Newt gives a weak nod. "Still breathing. Mostly."

Thomas doesn't say anything, just chokes on the air whilst nodding. I press a hand to my ribs again and let my legs float beneath me. Everything aches - my spine feels rattled, my limbs feel bruised from the inside - but we made it. We actually made it. We're soaked, shivering, probably scratched and bruised and rattled to hell. But nothing's broken. Nothing fatal. For the first time in what feels like hours, I let myself believe we're still in this. I tilt my head back toward the sky. The night's clouds blur from water in my eyes, but I don't blink it away. Not yet.

We chose the jump.

And we survived it.

We all swim toward the side of the pool, each stroke slower than the last, exhaustion sinking into our bones like the weight of the water itself. Every breath feels earned, every movement dragged from the last bit of willpower we have left.