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

... alternate ending ...

A/N: Guys I was in my feels. This is an alternate chapter following - REDEMPTION IN FLAMES -
If yall like it when you die, this is the chapter for you. Alll that matters is Newtie's Alive hehe.

Thats my only comment.

~~~

The world comes back slowly - like when I first woke up in that bloody Box, my mind reeling, wavering, barely holding together. The edges of my vision are blurred and trembling, like I'm waking inside a dream I'm not sure I want to face.

I feel the ache before I even open my eyes - deep in my bones. A dull, dragging pain that isn't sharp but is heavy, like the weight of everything I've been through pressing down on me all at once. It's a fog in my chest, a hollowness that seems to stretch beyond my skin. Everything is thick - my breath is slow, my blood sluggish, the silence around me so dense it almost drowns me. I blink, slow and uncertain, and find the low-lit ceiling above. Wooden sticks? A linen canopy flutters gently in the stale air, and I catch the faint scent of antiseptic mixed with pine smoke, with something faintly sweet underneath. It's a scent I don't want to forget.

Am I alive?

The question tastes bitter in my mouth.

I shift, and my unused body groan, protesting the movement. My throat is parched and raw. My arms feel leaden and far away - like they belong to someone else. But still, I'm here.

I'm here.

A chair creaks beside me, breaking the thick silence like a sudden crack in glass. The soft, shaky breathing. I turn my head, and there's Tommy. Sitting next to the bed, elbows on knees, his eyes red-rimmed, swollen, raw. His knuckles clutch something tightly, something small and weathered - a book, perhaps? Its cover faded and worn like it's carried the weight of more than just words.

"Tommy?" My voice is brittle, cracking like old glass shattering. It sounds foreign to my own ears. "Well you look like crap," I chuff.

He startles, looking up fast, a tear slipping free and trailing down his cheek. "Hey," he says, voice ragged, like it's been through a war I don't want to remember. "Hey, Newt."

I blink again, trying to clear the fog that's thick and maddening. That is my name - I didn't know that in the Box but I do now. The pieces of my mind are falling apart too quickly and yet crawling in slow motion. "Why're you crying?" I ask hesitantly. Tommy shakes his head, swallowing hard, sniffs - words stuck somewhere, swallowed by the visible sadness. He doesn't answer. I push myself a little higher in bed, the rough blankets scratching against my skin. "Where are we?" I digress. "I don't remember getting here," I mumble, voice barely steady.

"It's the Safe Haven," he says, voice low, almost a whisper. The words float in the heavy air like a fragile promise.

The name means something. It what Vince was chasing. A place of peace, of survival. The place we gave up on in order to save Minho-

Then flashes hit me, fast and cruel - painful stabs of memory. Screaming. Concrete. My fingers wrapped tight around a knife, trembling. A pistol. And her- "I think I was fighting (Y/n)?" The floodgates burst, crashing down. "I think- I hurt her. I didn't want to-?" My chest tightens until it feels like it might snap. I can't breathe around the guilt.

Tommy swallows, clearing his throat as if the weight of this moment is too much to bear. "You and (Y/n) did fight. But good for it, Newt. She stopped you from killing yourself," he tells me. "She held you off long enough for Minho and Gally to get back with the cure."

I exhale, a shaky, hollow laugh escaping me. "She saved me," I realise. "She always..." My voice trails off because something is wrong - something broken. Tommy isn't relieved. He's not smiling. He's holding back something terrible. "Is Minho alright? Gally?" I ask, needing to hear it. Those are the names he uttered last and they're the first thing I can tie to his upset.