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[ Chapter 29 ]
❛She awakens❜
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"SHH," Jay held a finger up to his lips. "There's a freaking griever down there."
It was the next day and Jay, Amara and Jungkook, found themselves back inside of the stone maze. Running it's ever-changing patterns and curves, cutting through the long vines that grew from its walls and stopping every so often to catch a break. It was like deja vu.
Jay had been running a metre or two ahead of the twins, when he'd rounded a corner to the right when he slammed to a stop, his feet almost skidding out from underneath him. He jumped and grabbed the two of them. Jungkook by the shirt and Amara by the waist, pushing them both against the wall.
Jungkook and Amara's eyes widened, though they remained calm. They were no stranger to grievers and knew it was best to remain calm, quiet and invisible rather then cause a scene and run away. They would only chase you.
Pulling away from the them, Jay slowly leaned forward to take a peek. Amara wanted to scream at him to be careful.
Jay's head jerked back and he turned to face them both again. His voice was still a whisper. "It's just sitting up there - almost like that dead one we saw, Amara." The two remembered that encounter all too well.
"What do we do?" Jungkook asked, as quietly as possible. He tried to ignore the panic flaring inside of him.
"Is it coming towards us?" Amara asked, staring into Jay's eyes for an answer before he spoke the words himself.
"No, idiot - I just told you it was sitting there," Jay quipped with the roll of his eyes, although he winced when Amara hit him in the shoulder, displeased with the name he referred to as. "Sorry." He apologised all too quickly.
"Well?" Jungkook raised his hands to his sides in frustration. "What do we do?" He repeats his question. Standing so close to a griever seemed like a bad idea.
Jay paused for a few seconds, thinking before he spoke. "We have to go that way to get to our section. Let's just watch it awhile - if it comes after us, we'll run back to the Glade." He took another peek, then quickly looked over his shoulder, startling the twins. "Crap - it's gone! Come on!"
Jay didn't wait for a response, nor did he see the look of horror Jungkook had just felt widen his own eyes as Jay grabbed Amara's hand and took off running in the direction the griever just was.
Though his instincts told him not to, Jungkook followed them.
He sprinted down the long corridor after Jay and Amara, turned left, then right. At every turn, they slowed so the keeper could look around the corner first. Each time he whispered back to the two that he'd seen the tail end of the griever disappearing around the next turn. This went on for ten minutes, until they came to the long opening that ended at the cliff, where beyond lay nothing but the lifeless sky. The griever was charging towards that sky.
Jay stopped so abruptly Jungkook and Amara almost crashed into him and sent him flying.
The trio watched on, staring in shock, as up ahead the griever dug in with its spikes and spun forward right up to the cliff's edge, then off, into the grey abyss. The creature disappeared from sight, a shadow swallowed by more shadow.
A moment of stunned silence passed, before Amara spoke up.
"Did we just watch a griever commit suicide?"
⋆.ೃ࿔*:･༻❁༺⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
"That settles it," Jay sighed.
The three stood on the edge of the cliff, staring at the grey nothingness beyond. There was no sign of anything, to the left, right, down, up or ahead, for as far as they could see. Nothing but a wall of blankness.
"Settles what?" Jungkook asked.
"We've seen it three times now, something's up." Jay said, hands on his hips.
"Yeah," Jungkook knew what he meant, but waited for Jay's explanation anyway.
"That dead griever we found - it ran this way, and we never saw it come back or go deeper into the maze. Then those suckers we tricked into jumping past us that night we were stuck in the maze." Jay explains.
"Tricked?" Jungkook scoffed. "Maybe not such a trick."
Jay looked over at him, contemplative. "Hmm, anyway, then this," he pointed out to the abyss. "Not much doubt anymore - somehow, the grievers can leave the maze this way. Looks like magic."
"If they can leave this way," Amara corrected, continuing Jay's line of reasoning, "So could we." A thrill of excitement shot through her.
Jay laughed. "Sound like Jungkook now, tiger," he shook his head and points to the boy as he spoke. "You got a death wish too? Is that a twin thing? Wanna hang out with the grievers, have a sandwich, or somethin'?"
Amara rose an eyebrow at him, folding her arms. "Well, have you got any better ideas?"
Jungkook watched on, amused. Jay held his hands up in surrender. "One thing at a time, tiger. Let's get some rocks and test this place out. There has to be some kind of hidden exit." He reasoned.
And so, the three began to scrabble around the crooks and crannies of the maze, picking up as many loose stones as possible. They got more by thumbing cracks in the wall, spilling broken chunks onto the ground. When they finally had a sizeable pile, they hauled it over right next to the edge and took a seat, feet dangling over the side. Amara nuzzled herself in between her two boys.
Jay pulled out his pad and pencil, and placed them on the ground next to him. "All right, we've gotta take good notes. And memorise it in them shuck heads of yours, too. If there's some kind of optical illusion hiding an exit from this place, I don't wanna be the one who screws up when the first shank tries to jump into it."
"That shank oughtta be the Keeper of the Runners," Jungkook joked. Being this close to a place where grievers might jump out at any second, made him feel uneasy. "You'd wanna hold on to one beauty of a rope."
Amara pushed him over. "Don't say things like that!" She scolds.
Jungkook rolled his eyes and sat himself up straight again. "Oh, how dare I insult the all' mighty Jay. Your pride and joy." He held his hands up and once again, Amara pushed him over.
Jay wrapped an arm around Amara's shoulder and pulled her closer to his side. "That's my girl!" He proclaimed proudly. Amara smiles up at him.
Jungkook rolls his eyes again, brushing off the dirt and dust from his shirt. "You guys make me sick." He scoffs.
Jay nor Amara say anything back insulting. Rather, Jay grabbed Amara's face and planted a large, sloppy kiss on her cheek. Jungkook's sisters cheek. The boy nearly gagged, staying in his dramatic-self's character. Amara meanwhile, has cheeks as red as the roses that grew back in the garden in the Glade.
Laughing to himself, Jay picked up a rock from their pile. "Okay, let's take turns tossing them, zigzagging back and forth out there. If there's some kind of magical exit, hopefully it'll work with rocks, too - make them disappear."
Amara took a rock and carefully threw it to their left, just in front of where the left wall of the corridor leading to the cliff met the edge. The jagged piece of stone fell. And fell. Then disappeared into the grey emptiness.
Jay went next. He tossed his rock just half a metre farther out than Amara had. It also fell far below. Jungkook threw another one, another half metre out. Then Amara. Each rock fell to the depths. The twins kept following Jay's orders - they continued until they'd marked a line reaching at least four metres from the cliff, then moved their target pattern half a metre to the right and started coming back towards the maze.
All the rocks fell. Another line out, another line back. All the rocks fell. They threw enough rocks to cover the entire left half of the area in front of them, covering the distance anyone - or anything - could possibly jump. Their discouragement grew with every toss, until it turned into a heavy mass of blah.
Until, Jay's next rock disappeared.
It was the strangest, most hard-to-believe thing Jungkook had ever seen.
Jay had thrown a large chunk, a piece that had fallen from one of the cracks in the wall. Jungkook and Amara had watched, deeply concentrating on each an every rock thrown. This one left Jay's hand, sailed forward, almost in the exact centre of the cliff line, started its descent to the unseen ground far below. Then it vanished, as if it had fallen through a plane of water or mist.
One second there, falling. Next second, gone.
"We've thrown stuff off the cliff before," Jay spoke up, his tone slow and disbelieving. Like he was lost in a daze. "How could we have missed that? I never saw anything disappear. Never."
Jungkook coughed; his throat felt raw. "Do it again - maybe we blinked funny or something."
"What? We all blinked funny at the same time?" Amara pulled a face at her brother, but Jungkook ignored her.
Jay did as he was told, throwing it in the same spot as before. And once again, it winked out of existence.
Jungkook was still in shock. "Maybe you weren't looking carefully other times you threw stuff over," he said. "I mean, it should be impossible- sometimes you don't look very hard for things you don't believe will or can happen."
The three of them threw the rest of the rocks, aiming at the original spot and every centimetre around it. To their surprise, the spot in which the rocks disappeared proved only to be a metre or so square.
"No wonder we missed it," Jay said, furiously writing down notes and dimensions, his best attempt at a diagram. "It's kind of small." He observed sarcastically.
"The grievers must barely fit through that thing," Amara shook her head but kept her eyes riveted to the area of the invisible floating square, trying to burn the distance and location in her mind, to remember exactly where it was. "And when they come out, they must balance on the rim of the hole and jump over the empty space to the cliff's edge - it's not that far. If I could jump it, I'm sure it's easy for them."
Jay finished drawing, then looked up at the special spot. "How's this possible, guys? What're we looking at?" Clearly, he was still in disbelief.
"Like you said, it's not magic," Jungkook shrugged. "Must be some kind of optical illusion or hologram, hiding an opening. This place is all jacked up." He threw his hands up.
"Yeah, jacked up is right. Come on," Jay agreed then got up with a grunt and put on his rucksack, before holding a helping hand out for Amara to take. "Better get as much of the maze run as we can. We'll tell Hope and Joon about this when we get back. Don't know how it helps, but atleast now we know where the shuck grievers go."
"And probably where they come from," Jungkook said as he took one last look at the hidden opening.
"The griever hole," Amara names it.
Jay nodded his head, keeping her hand held tight in his own. "Yeah, good a name as any. Let's go twinnies."
The twins stood and stared, waiting for Jay to make a move. Several minutes passed in silence and they realised how he must be as fascinated as they was. Finally, without saying a word, Jay turned to leave and dragged Amara with him. Jungkook reluctantly followed and the three of them ran back into the dark-grey maze.
⋆.ೃ࿔*:･༻❁༺⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
Back in the glade, the trio had only just stepped foot out of the map room, when they were ambushed by Joon and Hope. Neither of them looked happy and the twin's excitement quickly turned into worry. Jay was calm, however.
"Hey," the Keeper greeted them. "We were just-"
"Get on with it," Joon interrupted him, rudely. "Ain't got time to waste. Find anything? Anything?" He looked between the three of them.
Jay actually recoiled at the harsh rebuke, but his face seemed more confused than hurt or angry. "Nice to see you, too," he sassed. "Yeah, we did find something, actually."
Oddly, Joon almost looked disappointed. "Cuz this whole shuck place is fallin' to pieces." He shot Jungkook and Amara a nasty glare as if it were their fault... they thought they were passed this unnecessary blame?
'What's wrong with him?' Amara thought, feeling her anger flare. They'd been working hard all day and this was their thanks? Despicable.
"What do you mean?" Jay asked. "What happened whilst we were gone?"
Hope answered, nodding towards the box as he did so. "Bloody supplies didn't come today. Come every week for two years, same time, same day... but not today."
All five of them looked over at the steel doors attached to the ground. It seemed as if a shadow was hovering over it, darker than the grey air surrounding everything else. The sun didn't seem to want to come out today, dulling not only the air, but everything and everyone else around.
"Oh, we're shucked for good now," Jay whispered, his reaction alerting the twins just how grave the situation they were in really was.
"No supplies from the bloody box - yeah, I'd say we're shucked, all right." Hope shook his head.
Joon had folded his arms, still glaring at the box as if trying to open the doors with his mind. Jungkook hoped their leader didn't bring up what he'd seen in the changing - or anything related to himself, Amara, or the mysterious girl that had yet to wake up. Especially now.
"Yeah, anyway," Jay continued. "We found something wierd."
The trio waited, hoping that Hope or Joon would have a positive reaction to the news, maybe even have information to shed light on this mystery.
Hope raised his eyebrows. "What?"
Jay took a full three minutes to explain, starting with the griever they followed and ending with the results of their rock-throwing experiment. Jungkook and Amara would speak up now and again to help him tell the story.
"Must lead to where the... ya know... grievers live," he said when finished.
"The griever hole," Amara added, proudly. However, she quickly shrunk back into herself, embarrassed, when all four of them looked at her, annoyed, as if she had no right to speak.
"Gotta bloody see that for myself," Hope said. Then murmured, "Hard to believe." Jay, Amara and Jungkook all agreed with him and they had even seen it for themselves. It was madness.
"I don't know what we can do," Jay said. "Maybe we could build something to block off that corridor?" He suggested.
"No way," Hope shut Jay and his idea down. "Shuck things can climb the bloody walls, remember? Nothing we could build would keep them out."
Jungkook went to open his mouth and suggest his own idea, when a commotion outside of the Homestead shifted their attention away from the conversation. A group of gladers stood gathered around the tall, wooden tower, shouting to be heard over one another. V was in the group, and when he saw the five of them, he ran over. A look of excitement spread across his face.
What crazy thing had happened now?
"What's going on?" Joon asked, unimpressed.
"She's awake!" V yelled, breathless. "The girl's awake!"
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Holy sh*t! Things are about to hit the fan from here on out...
This book is coming to an unfortunate end, but you don't understand how relieved I'll be once it's all done! This book has been one of the longest I've taken to write, even longer then Slytherin Prince, and I know once it's finished that's one less thing on my (very full) plate at the minute! I've got many exciting things planned so, if you haven't already, feel free to follow me so you stay updated!
Also, on a much more serious note, can I ask you
guys to pls refrain from commenting asking, demanding or requesting me for updates! You may not think it, but it's actually quite rude :( I've got a life outside of Wattpad lol and a busy one at that! I'm in my second year at uni, im a waitress and (believe it or not hehe) I have a social life and there will be times that you may be waiting a while for updates and I do apologise! But you forget, I don't get paid to do this lol, I do this for my own pleasure and for your guys' too! However, it is not a number one priority of mine, merely a hobby/distraction from life and I only write when I either have the time or feel inspired (which isn't often) I hope you understand <3