"Emmeline! Emmeline wake up! It's a nightmare, it isn't real! It's just a nightmare! Em! Em, you're okay. Wake up!".
Fretful voices fill my head, but I'm stuck helpless in the in-between, not quite awake yet not quite asleep. I squirm against tight invisible bonds, trying to break out of my mind, but all the struggling in the world would do me no good.
I force myself to calm down, to regulate my ragged breaths into deep ones. The calmer I am, the looser the ropes become.
Before long they have fallen away into oblivion, and I push myself off of the ground. I stumble through a dark tunnel, reaching out desperately to find my way back to conciousness.
After wandering aimlessly, my cold hands find a door handle similar to the one in my room. I grab it and pull. An unseen hand tips me forwards, and I pitch over a railing into deep water.
Something is weighing me down, and I'm sinking further and further down, unable to breath.
Unable to scream.
My lungs start to burn like a wildfire, but still I don't stop tossing and turning. If there's one thing the Maze has taught me - taught us all - is that you never give up. There's always another way out.
I shut my eyes for just a second, praying to every god in the shucking universe that this isn't how I die.
And when I open them again, I am back in the Glade.
I sit up abruptly, sweat dripping from me like a waterfall. My hands shake and twitch, as if I'm having a seizure, and my eyes have accustomed to the darkness so much that I have to blink constantly to be able to vaguely see my surroundings.
It is only when I stop feeling like I'm drowning in air, that I realise I am surrounded by a number of worried faces. Alby sits at the foot of my bed; Minho is lent with his head against the wall; George, Gally and Winston stand by my window, worried looks etched across their features; and sat in a chair next to me is Newt.
"What the shuck was that, girl-greenie? We thought you were dying." Minho stands and looks at me, staring at me expectantly. Waiting for me to explain.
"I, I don't know. I heard this horrific screaming in the night, and I opened the door and then I was tumbling through this huge chasm. I landed in the Box but then it turned into this huge meadow. I saw Sonya, my friend from the Field, and when I went towards her, all the other girls were there. But they weren't my friends, they were demons, and black tar was dripping out of their mouths. It turned into a river of, of blood and it rushed at me, chasing me all the way into the meadow again, but the beautiful field I had been in moments ago cha was no longer there. It was the Maze." I say, still shaking slightly.
I glance over at Newt, deciding whether to tell him that he was present in the hallucination. I decide that I should, it's only fair that he knows. "You were there, Newt" He stops staring at the wall and faces me, rubbing his pale lip with concern.
"What did I do? In your nightmare, I mean" he asks.
"You yelled for me to run. I didn't know what from, but you just kept saying run. Over and over. You were frantic too, jumping and waving and all that klunk. I couldn't see you for ages either and when I did, a Creature - or Griever, or whatever you call them - dropped down out of nowhere. I took your advice at that point, and ran. It was chasing me for a while, but suddenly it stopped. All of a sudden I felt these, these pricks all over me and there were hundreds of beetle-blades all over me. Biting me, pinching me, whatever the hell they do. Then I passed out and I heard you all shouting, but I couldn't get to you. I tried. I really tried." I gulp, but Minho gestures for me to finish.
"I was in a cold, dark room and there were tight, really tight, ropes holding me down. And I was struggling and struggling but they just got tighter. Until I stopped, and they loosened enough for me to get out. I wandered down this pitch-black corridor and opened a door. I fell into water but something weighed me down and I just sank lower and lower and I was drowning and I couldn't breath and I couldn't swim and I couldn't. I couldn't do anything but sink, I was helpless to the fact I was dying. I kept fighting but it was no use. Just as I felt my lungs stop breathing and my heart stop beating, I woke up."
With that, I am finished. I look down at my quivering hands, and for reasons unknown I feel slightly ashamed. Ashamed that I wasn't strong enough to break out of a stupid dream.
I feel a warm tear trickle down my cheek, and drip onto the bed cover. I watch as it flowers outwards, soaking into the fibres. A warm hand takes mine, blocking the water, and I look upwards to see Newt. His brows are furrowed, but his eyes are worried and glossed over.
" Guys, I'm fine. Really. I'll be two minutes, tops, and then we can go Map. Go without me if you want, I'll be fine on my own today." I smile weakly at them all, before pushing myself stiffly off of the bed and towards the bathroom. Accepting that I want to be left alone, they file out of the room back to their jobs. Alby stops by the wooden doorway
"You're sure you're okay?" he says
"Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks Alby." I manage a feeble grin and he nods, before heading out of the door, back to the Glade.
Sighing, I glance out of the window. I can see the sun beaming high in the sky, juxtaposing how gloomy I heavy heart feels. I judge that it is about noon, and curse myself for missing another half-a-day of Mapping.
Just as I go towards the bathroom, I hear a soft ahem and turn to see Newt still sat in the wicker chair, legs crossed over each other. "Still here love" he chuckles, before standing up and walking over to me. He grins and leans on the window sill. His head hangs out of the open window, and his dirty blonde hair dances in the breeze. His jaw clenches and unclenches and he scans the Glade with dark-brown eyes, like a protective mother scanning over her children.
"Sorry Newt, I thought you left with the others." I step towards him and join him by the window, and for a minute we stand in silence, gazing out across the prison we call home.
I see Minho leave through the East Opening - just a speck of black across the Glade - and I remember that I should also be heading out to get as much Mapping done as possible, before nightfall. Cursing my dreadful memory, I remind Newt that he should be too.
"Shoot." he rushes towards the door, but stops in his tracks, before turning to face me again "Well, I'll see you at dinner Em. Be careful out there okay?"
I nod to him and wave, and he disappears out of the door, his footsteps echoing behind him. I pull on a light blue t-shirt and some grey shorts, tie my trainers tight, and jog out of the Homestead and towards the Maze.
As I run through the moss-coated walls, I have time to think. Think about my nightmare, and what it could mean. Think about whether the Makers had made it happen, or if it was really a dream of my own. Swallowed by my thoughts, I turn the corner back to the Glade without even realising I had been running at all. I can see the grass, the scattered clumps of vegetation, the smoke billowing out of the chimneys.
I put one foot in front of the other, but they begin to be out of beat. A wave of dizziness washes over me, and I fall to the ground. I wince, and sit up, but I can't get my legs to move. Calling for help, a rumbling fills my ears. The Openings.
They're closing.
"Emmeline!" I hear someone yell. I can barely lift my head, but I manage to force my eyes upwards to see Minho, Frypan and Newt racing towards me. But they're all the way on the other side of the Glade, they'll never make it.
Using all the power in my body, I drag myself forwards across the stone floor, but a stabbing pain shoots through my nerves, lie I'm being stabbed with millions of needles. Please, I think, not like this. Not here in this shucking Maze. I don't want to die.
Grunting with the effort and the pain, I pull myself onto trembling elbows. Tears run freely down my face but I'm too weak to wipe them away. They're so close, but so far. The gap gets smaller and smaller, and shaking with sobs I look upwards at the home I've only had for days, but it was still my home. The last thing I see before the Openings close, sealing my fate, is Newt's eyes - full of guilt - as he falls to his knees in the dirt.
A great boom fills my ears as the two sides meet their, counterparts. Dust rolls over me, and there is silence.
Paralysed, I lie helpless on the Maze floor. "If you can hear me, let them go." I whisper, voice cracking, "Let them go home, don't let them forget me. Please, let them go." I don't know who I'm talking to: the Makers, the universe, or my cold, frail self.
I exhale deeply, finally giving up. Another dizzy spell contorts my brain, and darkness washes over me.