Nightmares & Trauma
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Shorter chapter ;3
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WARNING:
Gore
Foul Language
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The Maze Runner - Waiting In The Rain 🎵
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"Good job, Y/n."
A tear trickles down your face as you see Gally on the other side of the glass. Drowned in water.
He watched you. Stand there. And kill him. Ava stands beside you, proud of you. Now you have to send someone else into the Maze for the month.
Him.
"That's the final component for the eighth Griever, correct?" Ava asks you.
You turn around to face her, shocked and in horror. Griever?
You look down in your hands to see that you're holding something. It's squishy. Red. Like a brain. In it is a metal piece. With the letter '8' placed on the side in the monitor. The piece is entrapped with guts of blood and gush.
You lift your head up to see Ava gone. Spinning around, and yet nobody is there. Nobody in the facility. It's empty. Rundown. But empty.
"AVA!?" Your voice echoes out, bouncing off the metal walls yet no response can be heard.
Except for a shriek which you recognize well. You feel chills go down your spine. Your head shoots up to see the Griever. It dribbles down in goo, its stomach missing and dripping of the component it's supposed to have.
It shrieks out again, lifting its legs up and slamming down on your body with the sharp pointers it balances on.
"AHHH!"
You shoot up in a cold sweat, panicking and heavy breathing. Screams pour out of your mouth as tears stream down your face.
"Hey! Hey!" Winston jumps in front of you, his eyes wide with panic. "It's okay!"
"Winston!?" You manage to choke out through quick breathed sobs.
"It's okay, it's okay!" He says quickly. "It was just a nightmare, you're awake! You're awake! You're safe!"
You choke the screams down, which are replaced with sobs. He pulls you into a tight hug, rubbing his arm up and down your back.
"It was just a nightmare, we have to go...we have to prove we're still alive."
You know this was a nightmare. And all the other 'nightmares' you had before had to be memories.
Why..?
Because you remember this one. And it wasn't real.
『 ✿ ✿ ✿ 』
You look up at the sky as you and Winston hobble along. No remains of the Griever. And no sign of Dan. Your bodies sore, aching, and tired from lack of sleep on a flat hard surface.
The sky is bright blue with white clouds. A sight you thought you'd never see again.
You feel so out of place.
You feel like you should be dead.
Nobody ever survives a night in the Maze.
Nobody ever survives a night in the Maze.
Nobody ever survives a night in the Maze.
Until now.
You'll be able to tell the tale nobody else could.
"We're almost there." A small laugh of victory escapes Winston's lips as he limps on his leg. You smile weakly, turning the corner.
The doors, they're open. And everyone's walking away from the doors.
They were waiting for you..!
"H-Hey!" Winston calls out. His voice seems to attract some people over, shocking everyone else who's still walking and forcing them to turn around, one by one.
You're too weak to laugh, to smile right now. Your body aching. Burning. You could collapse. But you can't...not right now.
Whispers and murmurs emit from the other side as Gladers run to the entrance of the doors. Their minds full of questions, and reasonably so.
"They're alive!"
"Whoa! They made it!"
You feel like you're in a movie, survived the most epic battle of your life with intense music playing in the background.
You did it. You survived the impossible.
You did it. You're alive.
"Y/n!" Gally runs over to you and Winston who helped support you lets go. It causes you to stumble, right into his arms.
"Y/n..." It sounds like he was going to yell at you. But holds back as you have trouble standing on your own.
"How'd they do it?"
"They're alive?"
"Look! It's Winston! And Y/n!"
Gally wraps an arm around you, helping you out of the Maze. Winston immediately goes to Jeff where they both hug tightly in a comforting embrace.
"Y/n..!"
"You dumb Shank!" Gally lets go of you, allowing you to be pulled into a tight hug of Newt and Minho.
They hug you both tightly, feeling the embrace of their bodies makes you feel much safer. Small sobs escape your lips and Newt starts shushing to try and calm you a bit.
"What happened out there!?" Gally yells over to Winston as you're preoccupied with Minho and Newt.
"How the hell did you survive, shank?" Minho whispers to you, lifting your head up with his hand.
"I nearly didn't..." You croak out. Your head is lifted up, and you catch the eyes of Hank.
A new sensation overcomes you. A new feeling of emotion.
It's negative. It's unpleasant. And you can't control it.
You feel rage. A burning rage that has a mind of its own.
"You...FUCKING BITCH!"
You shove out of the grip of Minho and Newt, trying to storm over to Hank. "FUCK YOU!"
"WHOA!"
"Whoa, okay!"
"Calm her down!"
"Y/n! Stop!" Minho grabs you from behind, holding you back but with little success due to your new level of strength. Everyone else is also stunned and shocked as they stare at you bewildered and seemingly afraid of this side of you. So Newt has to help hold you both, as well as Frypan.
"YOU LIED!"
"Y/n, calm down, alright?!" Newt says, peering his head round in front of you, his eyes wary and alarmed. Amost slightly afraid. He'd never seen you like this, nobody has.
"NO! You don't just go sacrificing people when you see a corpse of another Glader! YOU DON'T LEAVE THEM TO DIE!"
Newt's eyes furrow at you, and then turn to Hank with a questionable expression. "Hank?"
"I don't know what she's-"
"SHUT IT!" You struggle against Minho and Frypan, but no use. You can't get free. "You took out his ankle so he couldn't get back to the Glade! He's DEAD BECAUSE OF YOU! This wouldn't have happened if it weren't for you!"
"Y/n! CALM DOWN!" Minho demands. "Snap out of it!"
You feel your face get red as you cry out, struggling in his grip. All you want to do is punch him. That's the only thing running through your mind and the only reason you're struggling.
But it's pumping your blood as well. Blood of wounds that are making them bleed again.
Minho and Frypan take this as a sign that you're not struggling against them, your body getting weaker. They let go of you but you keep your head down, trying to remain conscious.
No...stay...stay awake..!
It's only when you lift your head up, you feel your whole body go weird. Unable to correlate with the sudden movement. You catch the eyes of Gally before they begin to blur. You can't tell who it is. You assume.
"Gally..?"
Your body is numb. Your wounds are painful. Your mind is fuzzy. Your vision is blurred. And your ears are ringing. Reality is slow. Your body loses control of itself and your head lifts up into the bright light of the sun. Which is the last thing you see before everything goes black.
On the view of the other Glader's, they're all watching this happen. Two individuals who survived the Maze returned, one of them gone.
Gally is the angriest about it, and he watches you as you lose your senses. He has a feeling something bad is going to happen and cautiously steps forward, noticing your behavior being limp.
"Minho, Fry, she's gonna fall." Gally speaks up. He has a hard time expressing emotion, so it's hard for him to show his concern for you.
"Gally..?" At the sound of his name, he's taken aback. But he doesn't get much time to react as he sees your eyes roll into the back of your head and they shut, your body losing consciousness and falling.
Minho makes quick movement to catch your body, which collapses in his arms and he brings you to the ground. Your body limp in his arms, your face turning pale.
"Whoa!"
"Oh, shuck!"
"What's happened?"
"Y/n, Y/n? Can you hear me?" Newt crouches down beside your body, which is turning white and cold. He taps the side of your face, which no response is returned. No reaction.
"She got injured!" Winston explains quickly. Gally looks up to him as much as Minho who has you in his lap and Newt crouched down beside him. Fry not too far away also.
"Why was she yelling at Hank?"
"No, we can't worry about Hank right now." Newt says firmly. "Alby, do we have permission to put him in the pit?"
"What!? NO!" Hank yells out, directing the attention of other Glader's to himself.
However, Alby is firmly against Hank but doesn't know what to believe. Gally crouches down beside you, taking in your appearance.
It's sickly pale. Losing blood as your clothes begin to stain in your abdomen, your leg, and your upper arms, wrists, and hands. Slow though, so the wounds aren't critically open.
"She's bleeding." Gally's voice croaks out, his heart speeding up. He's liked you for the longest time as you're curious. Brave. Strong. And a type of person he had never seen in the boys ever before.
Finding significance in your beauty.
Yet the fear of the emotions he felt. A softer side of him even he'd never seen before. Using anger and an attitude to cover it up. Making you his enemy. And rolling along with it to try and get rid of the feelings.
Clearly, his fear for you right now proves that hadn't worked.
"She needs medical attention." Minho says urgently. "She's going to bleed out."
"Send Hank to the pit." The order from Alby is decided after some time. And Gally, Newt, and Minho don't bother to look up from you as Hank's yells and begs are pulled away, headed toward the pit.
Gally picks up your hand which is ice cold in his. He doesn't want you to go...
He doesn't want you to go...
『 ✿ ✿ ✿ 』
You feel your ears ringing slightly. Your mind fuzzy, and blurred. A small groan emits from your lips as your eyes flutter open.
Four blurry figures sit in the corner of your vision in the dark sheltered hut. Your ears slowly not ringing as you bat your eyes, snapping yourself out that.
Clearing your vision, you see who they are.
Newt.
Minho.
Winston.
"Gally?"
He cracks a small smile before frowning again and lifting his head up. It's weird, seeing him smile.
"We're here too..." Minho grumbles. You look over to him to catch his gaze, relieved to see with a huge sigh and a weak smile. "You scared me for a minute there, Shank."
"You scared us all." Newt adds, not smiling but clearly relieved deeply to see you're awake.
You proceed to sit up before you wince, clutching your stomach where the pain surged.
"Don't...you need to rest." Newt tells you, putting an arm out which quickly retreats back. "You took in horrible injuries."
You glance over to Winston who smiles weakly at you, lifting up an arm to show that he himself has also been patched up. Guess he got the better end of the stick...
But your mind is fuddled, you can't quite remember what happened after you yelled at Hank.
You'll never forgive him.
"What...happened?"
"Your wounds, they were bleeding out." Newt explains. "After losing the plot at Hank, you collapsed."
"I was able to catch you this time." Minho remarks. And all of you chuckle lightly about it, even Gally. It reminds you of when you first ran into the Maze. Didn't know them like you do now. Wouldn't go near them for a second.
Stranger danger.
Now they're your friends. Sitting by your bed and waiting for you to awaken when they could be doing anything else.
"I can't believe we made it, Winston..." Your voice is a whisper and the boys look over to Winston who nods his head.
"I wouldn't have made it without you."
"But you kept me alive."
"And you pushed us to survive." Winston argues. "We were going to give up and let the Grievers take us if it weren't for you. Because those Beetle Blades tracked it to us. If we hadn't hidden in the ivy, we would be dead a lot quicker. You pushed me to live, to fight for my life. To not give up on Dan while we still could. You saved me."
"What happened after you hid? Surely those Beetles would've found you." Newt asks him. Winston looks up at Newt with a fearful look. "They did. They tracked us in the ivy, ratted us out, and that's when the Griever found us. But Dan had a sprained ankle, and he begged us to leave him. She wouldn't."
Gally and Minho look at you like you're crazy, while Newt has a look of what seems to be honor.
"It's every man for themselves out there." Gally says sharply, although you don't quite know what he means by it.
"Maybe that's why everyone dies. Because they split up, so the Grievers can get them. But it would get them anyway, you were right, Newt. Those Beetle Blades are a tracking source for the Grievers." You say with a sigh. "I would never leave them though, I wish Dan would've taken my place..."
"Hey, don't say that." Minho growls suddenly at you. "Don't say that stuff."
"He was a Runner! More useful to you than I am!" You try to sit up again, only to wince and go back down. You need to stay in here for a little while to recover at least.
That's gonna be boring.
"It's not about being useful, it's about being important." Newt replies, a strong look of hurt in his eyes. To hear you talk this way about yourself. You glance at him in a sulk and he frowns at you, looking away with his arms crossed.
"You may not believe me, and I don't expect you to." Newt scoffs, avoiding eye contact from your injured figure in the medical bed. "But you've helped the Glade balance itself just a little bit more. The Glade has been more cooperative, more interesting, with you here. So if you were to die out there, you'd be taking a lot of hope from us."
W-What...but you're not even special to anyone. All you've done is what you've needed to do.
"What's so special about me, Newt?"
"Plenty of things, stop being such a dumb Shank, and rest." Minho ruffles your hand with a rough hand and you pout, watching him leave through the entrance through your fringe, before brushing it away with a hand.
"I need to go check up on Jeff, I think he's talking to Hank in the pit." Winston gets up and leaves as well, making a slow pace with the pain.
Newt sighs, shaking his head. "I'm gonna go talk to Alby. Don't get negative on us, we need you."
His eye contact had been removed the whole time, which only leaves you with Gally. You sigh, looking away, resting your head on the excuse for the pillow.
You're in pain, so your words are harsh and not surprising to him. "I guess you got better things to do as well?"
There's a minute of silence between you two followed by a sigh from him. "No."
You turn your head confused at him and he frowns down at you. "What you did was extremely stupid. You broke a rule. But you're injured, and you need to recover."
"So?"
"Even though you broke a rule." It sounds like he's forcing himself to say this, but you could be entirely wrong. "I'm gonna stay with you. You need the company."
He puts his hand on the bed, beside yours. You weakly, put your hand on top of his and he takes it, holding your hand. His breath hitches at the contact and he flinches.
His hand is much bigger than yours. And it makes you feel funny. It makes you feel a bit safer, that he's got you. That you can hold his hand, knowing he's there.
He rubs his thumb along the back of your hand which soothes you. And your eyes begin to shut again. Gally continues to keep doing this realizing it's relaxed you, and you don't have the energy to bother to question him.
Last night was a nightmare. And it was restless with the nightmare you had. As you feel yourself drifting off, your body sinking into the bed, you feel a small kiss on the back of your hand. But you're already dozing into sleep to even think about reawakening or questioning it.
"Sleep well, my little Greenie."