Deleted Memories (The Maze Runner, Newt)

Chapter 4

Days passed and I began to feel weak. The boy, whose name I had learned was Jeff, had been trying to feed me liquefied food, but it wasn't enough. I felt as if my body had run out of energy. Newt spent every night here. He would leave for the majority of the day, but would always return. I would hear his footsteps as he left and came back. I'd hear a chair scrape against the floor and he'd always heaved a sigh as he plopped down onto it. Jeff would come in every hour to check on me; taking my temperature, checking my blood pressure. He would always give me some words of encouragement as if he knew I could hear him. Newt would always ask how I was doing when he would return for the day. And Jeff would answer the same way, "she hasn't improved." Those were always depressing words to hear.

One night, Newt and I had been alone in the room. He brought the chair over to the bed and sat down, taking my hand. "Please just wake up. I know you probably can't hear me, but please wake up. I feel drawn to you. Like I've known you from my past that I don't remember. You bring back feelings, feelings I've never felt before. I want to know your name. I want to talk to you. Figure out why I feel so drawn to you. So please, just wake up." Newt finished speaking and I tried to move, tried to speak; let him know that I heard him, that I'd like to talk to him, to see him.

That name, Newt, it seemed all too familiar but then again, there was a large chance that I was becoming insane. Stuck with only my thoughts and the sweet sounds of Newt's light breath near me as he slept the nights away.

I never really slept; my body never felt tired, but whenever I did get a few winks of sleep, it felt like pure bliss. At night, I felt more relax and comfortable. There was no light streaming through my eyelids and there wasn't much movement outside where I could hear other people working away and chatting. It was silent and dark. Newt was always there so that I never did get lonely. He would speak to me occasionally, only a few words and they were usually for me to wake up or that he hoped I would recover.

A few days past and I had lost all hope of ever returning to normal. I had lost count of the number of days that I have been there. It had to have been at least a few weeks though. No more than a month, but nowhere near as little as one week. Until one morning after I had finally met the sweet serenity that is sleep, I woke up and yawned, rubbing my eyes. That's when I froze. Movement felt foreign to me. And the sound of my voice, even if it had just been a yawn was something that I never thought I would be happy to hear. I almost screamed in excitement.

So that's when I began testing the rest of my body. Starting with my eyes, I slowly began to open them. They had crusted over, so I had to run my eyes a little hard to remove any build up I had received. Then I sat up, a little too quickly. I groaned as the pain in my back. Who knew laying in bed for so long would hurt so bad? I quickly flopped back down on the bed. So that was not a success, but that would come in due time. At least I had my vision and voice back.

It was time to take in my surroundings. I was in a square room that was only just big enough to fit a small cot, a couple of chairs and a side table. There was just enough room around the furniture so that someone could easily manoeuvre themselves around the bed. The walls were made of wood boards. Some were full of knots, others were splitting down the middle. Other boards were cut unevenly which allowed for slits of light to stream through.

There was a small window on the wall to the left; it was still dark outside, but the sun was just starting to rise and a light pink hue was lighting up the sky. There didn't appear to be any glass on the window, but it was warm enough out that I wasn't cold. It made me wonder about winter months with no windows. How did these people manage to stay warm?

Next to my bed was a jerry-rigged looking nightstand with only one thing on it. The condensation on the metal glass of water made my mouth water. I reached out, wincing at the pain in my arm, and grabbed the glass. I put the glass to my lips and quickly downed the liquid. It soothed my dry throat. Wishing there was more, I say the glass back down and continued my observations.