[ ELECTRA ]
❧
The trio returned to the Glade with plenty of time to spare. Electra left Minho and Thomas before the two turned the corner to the Doors and they all casually said goodbye. She watched as her best friend and the new trainee disappeared from sight before walking towards an ivy wall and hoisting herself up.
Another night in the Maze. Alone. The fact hit her harder than ever due to her gloomy surroundings.
Reaching the top of the wall, Electra sat and looked up at the ceiling. The Doors were meant to close shortly then after that she needed to resume her nightly duties. She hadn't seen a Griever trying to get into the Glade for a few days and she wondered what they were up to, if not trying to kill her and the Gladers.
With the changes that had been noticed within the last 24 hours, including the sky itself disappearing, Electra assumed the night ahead would be anything but calm. She doubted she'd be able to kill any of the Grievers by herself, as earlier that day they'd barely killed the Griever they'd seen and it'd been a 3 against 1 match, but she didn't necessarily have to kill them.
She just needed to make sure they didn't enter the Glade. The fact was somewhat consoling.
Electra picked herself up off the floor, raising her arms above her head and stretching out. Whatever the night ahead had in store for her she would handle it like she'd always done.
She decided to travel to her makeshift bed on top of the walls to get a couple of hours of rest before whatever was about to happen. Letting out a deep breath, Electra veered forward and began running. She forced her attention to the thumping of her soles on the stones beneath her feet lest her thoughts lead her astray.
The dreary grey landscape surrounded her and its dullness made her feel uneasy. The eternal dusk, along with the relative absence of Grievers, made the Maze feel empty, like a ghost town. Electra was the last pitiful spirit that remained in the death trap, trapped in her job of surveying the endless twists and turns of the Maze for the rest of eternity.
Reaching her makeshift bed, she swung her pack over her shoulder and plopped down. She snatched her water bottle and took a couple of sips while curiously peering down at the Glade below her.
The open, grassy landscape was decorated with fire-lit lanterns sparkling around the buildings. Boys hurriedly moved from one building to another, some of them carrying lanterns but most of them scurrying solo from one location to the other. Electra's eyes wandered to the middle of the Glade, where the Box sat. She remembered Minho telling her how the contraption refused to go back down, and seeing it completely motionless in the center of the clearing made her throat feel dry.
No sun and no new supplies. One way or another things were about to end.
A certain boy storming off into the forest caught her interest. Thomas. Electra held back a laugh while watching him chaotically stumble into the thick trees, his movements rigid and sharp. She wondered what must've happened to make Thomas act so anxious and her question was soon answered.
Moments after Thomas' entry into the forest, Electra noticed someone following him. At first, she assumed it to be the pre-teen boy that followed Thomas everywhere but when Electra saw her thick brown waves, her heart sank.
Teresa. She was awake.
Since when? Electra leaned forward the tiniest bit instinctively, wanting to get a good look at the comatose girl she'd only heard about from Minho and Thomas. The girl moved with such a confident essence, her steps so sure, her eyes locked directly on the trees in front of her.
Teresa didn't look how Electra had pictured her. It was hard to see the girl from such a tall and far angle, but Electra could tell that Teresa was very pretty. Perhaps it was her confidence that made her so appealing. Teresa didn't hesitate when she reached the thick trees and stepped forward into them. She was following Thomas?
Something was off about Thomas and Teresa talking alone in the forest. Electra remembered her suspicions about the two being involved with the Creators. Thomas always refused any possibility of knowing anything, but what about the girl? Could she know something? Was she following Thomas into the dense trees to tell him the truth about everything?
Electra was pulled out of her thoughts when two more boys entered the forest. She couldn't quite recognize them from her vantage point but she knew for sure that one of them had to be Alby. She'd just saved the boy's life a couple days ago and now it looked like the boy was back on his feet again, as normal as ever. Electra wondered what the Changing had done to him and what he remembered.
When the rustling of the trees calmed down, and the boys in the Glade ceased from scurrying around, an uncomfortable silence rested upon Electra. She scrunched her eyebrows, looking down at the Glade and how gloomy and empty it seemed.
Something was off. At first, Electra chalked up the feeling to the sky itself ceasing to work.
As soon as she came to the conclusion, the Glade roared back to life. This time, the boys moved with a worried attitude, similar to that of Thomas when he ran into the forest moments ago. The Gladers' talking got louder right as the fires from the lanterns seemed to burn even brighter in the perpetual greyness.
Electra tilted her head at the boys, scanning the landscape for any sign of trouble. When she couldn't see anything out of the ordinary she slowly shook her head.
The Gladers slowly began to huddle in front of the Doors, curiously peering into the darkened hallway. At first, nothing clicked in her mind. Why would the Gladers be so concerned about the Maze? Was a Runner running late?
Then, when the realization hit her so did an intense feelings of nausea.
What time was it? Electra didn't have a watch like the Runners did, as she relied on the sun to tell her the approximate time. Now that the sun was gone, there was no way for her to tell. But it all seemed so obvious, considering how much time had passed since she'd said goodbye to Thomas and Minho.
The Doors hadn't closed.
None of them did. They should've closed a while ago, but all four Doors were wide open as if they'd never been able to close in the first place.
Then she heard gears turning behind her and Electra felt like a mouse caught in a trap.
Crawling out of her bed, Electra looked over the opposing edge of the wall facing away from the Glade. A Griever was slowly making its way up the wall, screeching when it finally saw her peeking over the edge.
Electra swiftly grabbed her pack that rested on the floor before racing along the top of the wall. She knew the Griever would follow her and sure enough within seconds she heard its metallic legs stabbing into the stone surface as it ran after her.
She knew she wouldn't be able to outrun the monster so as she turned the corner she dropped into a slide and fell off the edge of the wall. Reaching out she grabbed a cluster of ivy, her body swaying to the side and hitting the wall to her right.
Wincing, she began climbing down the wall. She barely saw the Griever screeching to a halt, passing the area where she dropped off. While the creature stumbled back to greet her, she climbed down as quickly as she could, dropping to the floor prematurely and collapsing onto the stone.
Without thinking, she ran in the direction of the Doors. If the Grievers didn't have to climb the walls to enter the Glade she guessed they'd all be herding around the Doors, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
In other words, the Gladers were vulnerable and it was Electra's job to protect them.
The voice she heard during her first day in the Maze ringed in her head. Protect the boys inside the Glade.
Her run dragged out due to her dread and she kept looking behind herself, paranoid that the Griever from before was following her. She never saw the monsters behind her but she could hear their screeches in the distance, as well as their clicking and gear turning nearby, as if they were invisible and walking right beside her.
Nearing the Doors, she climbed up the wall. Electra peeked over the top and looked left and right for Grievers. When she didn't see any, she pulled herself on top of the wall and crawled over to the other side, peering down the hallway where the Doors still remained agape.
The entire hallway seemed deserted but the ominous clicking and gear turning still filled her ears. They had to be nearby, she could hear them. But where were they?
Looking back into the Glade she saw the boys running around chaotically. Her eyes became glued to Minho when she recognized him running into the Map Room, leaving the metal door open behind him. Was he worried about the maps' safety? The Map Room was probably the most secure building in the Glade, so what was he doing in there?
Her ears perked when the Grievers' clicking sound felt like it was right beside her and she jumped away from the sound. Looking over, she noticed the Griever from before, slowly crawling up to her.
She didn't get the chance to look back down towards Minho before running off, away from the Doors. Again, she knew she couldn't outrun the monster, but she at least needed to lead it away from the Glade for as long as she could.
Turning the corners of the Maze, she noticed a couple of Grievers walking in the direction of the Glade. With one Griever already hot on her tail, she didn't have time to jump down and distract the others. So she kept running.
More Grievers appeared, walking in a perfect robotic line towards the Glade. Electra tried counting them but she lost track after the first ten. The Griever behind her was gaining on her, and below her more Grievers stalked past in the opposite direction.
The Grievers didn't need to climb the walls to get into the Glade; they could just walk right in. Electra knew that was exactly what they were going to do.
Her nausea amplified and she felt as if she was about to cave in. How was she supposed to protect the Gladers? She was just one person, and there was an entire pack of evolved monsters walking right into the Glade.
She couldn't protect the boys. At this point, she could barely protect herself. The Griever was right behind her and if it reached forward with any of its arms it could easily kill her.
The Griever swung forward and Electra tried dodging but the Griever was quicker. The monster sliced into her leg and sent her flying off the tops of the walls.
Electra screamed out, grabbing onto the ridges in the stone and feeling her fingers cramp.
Looking up, the Griever was nowhere to be seen, as if it'd never been there to begin with. The burning pain in her right leg reminded her of reality and she sucked in a breath through her teeth.
The wall she clung to barely had any ivy and the stones were slippery to the touch. Slowly, she climbed down to the floor, putting her entire weight on her left leg.
Reaching the ground, she slumped onto her behind. With trembling hands, she reached out for her wound. A jagged cut tore through her pants and directly into her skin. The fabric surrounding the cut was already soaked with red and her leg pulsed with pain.
Lifting the pant leg over the cut, she winced when the fabric rubbed against the wound. Her hands were tinted red and her entire body began shaking. She swung her pack over her shoulder and began throwing her things out of it. By the time she found her medical equipment, the inside of her pack was stained red from the blood on her hands.
She couldn't think properly as she treated her wound. Wrapping it in bandages, the entire world seemed to slip away. Before she fell into nothingness, the thoughts returned. They ambushed her one after another as if they were purposefully working together to completely deabilitate her.
The Grievers were going to attack the Glade and the Gladers were severely underprepared for a situation like this. Most of them had never even seen a Griever before. Once the monsters passed the boundary into the Glade, Electra was powerless to stop them, unless she wanted to get herself electrocuted to death.
She remembered Teresa meeting Thomas in the forest. Then, the Ending popped into her mind. She'd never considered why the Ending had been triggered and sitting on the floor with her wounded leg in front of her she put the pieces together.
A few days ago Thomas, Minho, and Alby got themselves trapped outside the Glade. Electra helped them and revealed herself to Thomas, thus breaking the rules of the voice. And now, the Doors refused to close and the Grievers were entering the Glade, an area she couldn't physically enter even if she wanted to. The irony knocked the air out of her.
Looking up at the drab grey ceiling, she struggled to suck in a breath. It was all her fault. She broke the voice's rules by interfering and meeting Thomas. Since meeting him, everything went south in a matter of days. Now, not only were the Gladers in imminent danger, but Minho was. She broke a rule and now he had to pay for it.
In that moment, her mind shut off and the shakiness took over. Electra refused to fall into panic, so she pulled herself up and began jogging back towards the Doors, limping on her wounded leg. Her entire brain felt blank and she felt the suffocating feeling of nothingness inside her mind.
The shaking got worse by the second and soon it became the only thing she could focus on. Her entire body buzzed and she felt her cheeks become damp with tears. Her chest felt heavy and sad, and the dreadful sensation seeped from her chest and into the rest of her body.
She was trapped in a shell of anxiety and barely even felt herself run into a boy and fall to the ground. She knew she fell, and she felt her body fearfully crawl backwards and rest against the wall, but she couldn't process the fact.
The boy said something to her but she couldn't hear what he was saying. Electra curled into a ball and the shaking became unbearable. She felt less than human; she was simply the anxiety. She was pure panic and everything else vanished.
She barely felt the boy's grasp on her shoulders and how he gently shook her. She didn't respond to him and he began shaking her harder.
The boy continued talking to her and as his voice got louder it began to pierce through her veil of panic.
"Electra, hey! Look at me! Are you okay? What happened?"
She forced her head to move up and look at the boy, immediately recognizing his brown eyes.
Minho.
The name stuck in her mind, filling the emptiness. She felt the warmth of his hands leave her shoulders and she closed her eyes when he cupped her face.
"It's my fault." Electra managed to slip the words out, her tears dripping on his hands.
"Hey, you're having a panic attack." Minho's thumb rubbed her cheek, wiping the tears away. "It's gonna be okay."
His voice sounded awkward, but his grip was firm. Another wave of trembling hit her and she fought the urge to pull away from him and thus her own existence. The desire to slip into panic was strong, but Electra used all her energy to focus on her best friend in front of her.
"Listen to me, okay? We don't have much time so you need to breathe." Minho let in a deep breath, urging Electra to copy him.
Electra drew in a breath but it trembled and shook. While letting out the breath, it was interrupted with random hiccups of her sucking air back in.
Electra took a few more deep breaths, each one of them flawed by anxiety. Although her trembling still consumed her, she began to come back into consciousness.
"Minho, what are you doing here?" Electra's voice shook as she asked the question and her words were interrupted with random hiccups of sucking in a breath.
His hands left her face and her cheeks felt cold. She blinked a few times when she saw him holding up a bag.
He took a few pieces of paper out of the bag as well as a metal cylinder. "I need to hide the maps and the Griever device. I was going to store them in your Cove."
"You can't go back to the Glade," Electra whimpered, the picture of the Grievers walking towards the Gladers popping back into her mind. "Grievers- they... they're coming."
Minho stuffed the items back into his bag then studied her expression for a few moments. Feelings of doubt began to fill her soul. She felt like the scared little girl she used to be when first dropped into the Maze. What must he be thinking of her?
Minho sighed and his playful tone felt forced. "I have to go back. Those dumb shanks are helpless without me. Don't want them thinking I abandoned them."
Electra nodded in return but the gesture was weak.
Minho latched into her arm and began pulling her up. "We need to go. Do you think you can walk? What happened to your leg?"
"I'm fine." The words jumped out of her mouth and she pulled away from Minho. She stumbled a bit but leaned against the wall to steady herself.
"I'll take you back to the Cove. You need to rest."
Electra didn't think. She reacted, "Rest? I can't rest when I'm failing at everything I was put here to do."
Minho looked at her for a few moments, his eyebrows scrunching as he frowned at her. "Well, we still need to go."
"You go." Electra looked into his eyes and she felt herself steady a bit more. "I need to protect the Glade."
Minho didn't reply. He simply stared and she knew what he was thinking. There was no way she could protect the Glade. The Doors were wide open and herds of Grievers were crowding around, waiting to strike. And when they did strike there was no way she could fight them without killing herself in the process.
"Okay," Minho said, giving her a quick nod. "I'll see you in the morning. Be safe."
She nodded back to him before he bolted off in the direction of her Cove. Electra turned and made her way towards the Glade, focusing on her breathing.
Occasionally, she would be hit with residual waves of panic. Each time this occurred she had to stop and grip the wall beside her, letting the panic run its course through her veins. Eventually, the panic receded and she continued on her journey.
She climbed up the wall and crawled over to the other side, peering down into the Glade. She wasn't sure if Minho had already returned — she lost track of time a long time ago. She assumed that he had, as her pace getting here had been painfully slow and Minho was the fastest of all the Runners.
The Grievers had already slipped into the Glade and she wanted nothing more than to jump down and chase them away. Luckily, she didn't see any of the Gladers. They'd been smart enough to hide.
One of the Grievers snuck up to the Homestead and it sneakily peered around the building. Electra noticed the windows had been boarded up and held in a breath when she realized that's where the Gladers must've been hiding.
Chaos ensued when the Griever stabbed into the boarded up window and forced its way inside the building. Boys tore the door open and bolted outside. Other Grievers began chasing them throughout the Glade.
Electra scanned the surroundings, trying to find a boy she recognized. She couldn't. Where were the others?
Standing on top of the walls she helplessly watched the mess below her. She couldn't do anything to help them. The stupid device in her arm sealed their fate.
Her gaze shifted to the device and she narrowed her eyes when she saw its familiar shape. She looked over the two parallel blue lines before focusing on the letters that were arranged vertically.
W.I.C.K.E.D.
Its blue tint reflected back onto her face and she noticed how the device was glowing brighter than it ever had, as if it was mocking her.
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A/N: sorry i haven't updated in a while!! buuut good news is that i've been writing a TON lately sooo hopefully the next few updates will be quicker!
vote and comment if u wanna hehe ok bye!