Seperation // Gally x Reader

After about thirty minutes, and many stolen bites of Newt's dinner, we're finally shown to our bedroom. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't this. We're taken to a room with about 7 bunk beds on each side, and a small sink with a mirror, coated in a light dust of soot and grime, against the back wall. I genuinely thought Teresa and I would have our own quarters, but I've lived with these idiots long enough, what's a few more days?

Earlier, I had noticed Teresa's absence, but Newt assured me they had just seen her, and that she was okay. Not that I cared too much, we weren't exactly close friends, but good to know that she isn't dead or strung up somewhere for her brain to be harvested.

The boys all immediately call top-bunk, and it's so overwhelming that I completely freeze. They're acting as though sleeping on the top bunk was the greatest honour and achievement they could ever receive. I feel a strong hand on my shoulder, and a cool chill runs up my spine.

Minho.

I knew it was his spear that pierced Gally's chest. I'd seen him throw it out of the very corner of my eye. I'm not sure if he knows this, but it doesn't change anything. He killed Gally, and it still didn't manage to protect us.

"Are you okay?" He asks. "I'm fine," I reply coldly, shrugging his supportive gesture away from my skin. "You don't look fine." He says, worry and sympathy in his tone. "Then stop looking." I move away from him, collapsing onto a bottom bunk beneath Chuck. I spin to my side and can see Thomas setting up opposite me.

I realise that the room is almost dimensionally transcendent, with a whole nother section lying behind my bed. All it has is a few towels and wardrobe looking compartments, but it helps me to feel less claustrophobic after they lock and seal the single door.

It gets dark sooner than I anticipated, and since there's not much to do, we all just settle in for rest. Chuck tries to chat to me, but I'm just too exhausted to keep him entertained. Thankfully, Newt shuts him up before I have to, complaining about his need to sleep.

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I can't sleep. It's too hard. Even if I did manage too, I'm too afraid of what dreams I might be plagued with. Sometime through the night, I have no idea what time it is, Thomas starts rustling around and decides to get up.

I watch him as he walks over to the small, illuminated sink and splashes his face, peering at himself vainly in the mirror. "Can't sleep, T?" I whisper to him quietly as he glides back onto his bed. "Nope. I don't really understand how any of them can."

"At least when you're asleep you don't have to think about it."

"I guess."

We both fall silent, staring at the rusty bunks above us. A quiet rattling echoes throughout the room, casting a cautious blanket into the air. We exchange a look, trying to decipher where it's coming from. Thomas props himself up onto his elbows, scanning the room. I jump slightly, completely startled, as we hear a quiet "Psst!" from beneath Thomas' bed.

"Hey! Down here." It continues, and Thomas manoeuvres himself onto his stomach to finally stare the thing in its face. It sounds like a person, about my age, with a light southern accent. But really, how can we be sure it's not some middle-aged creep who just likes watching kids sleep?

I slip out of bed, and jog as quietly as I can over to them. I jump down onto my stomach and jolt once again as I peer at something sticking out of a vent. Staring back at me, with a finger over his lips, is a boy. He has dark purple circles under his sky blue eyes, and his mud brown hair is cut surprisingly short for his face structure. He's skinny, so much so that his cheekbones are poking at his skin.

"Oh my god." Thomas mumbles, hanging from the side of his bed like Spider Man. "Come on, follow me." The boy says, retreating backwards inside the duct. Thomas spins off the bed and kneels down to watch the boy. I'm quite intrigued, so instantly begin crawling into the tight space, and Thomas soon follows.

It seems to expand as we explore further through the confusing tunnels. Our reflections bounce off the murky squares of metal, distorted and unrecognisable. The cramped walls pressed into me, clinging like a damp sheet. The only light came from the faint glow filtering through the occasional grate, but even that wasn't enough to see more than 3 feet ahead. Every creak and groan of our movement seemed amplified in the metallic shaft.

"Hurry. This way." The boy says from around a corner. He seems to be well adapted to the hunched position and dog-like crawling, more so than Thomas and I who struggle to keep up. He leads us through so many twists and turns, it would be impossible for me to navigate my way back alone.

"Hey, wait a second. What the hell are we doing?" Thomas asks, his curiosity finally turning verbal. "Come on, we're gonna miss it," is the boy's reply. I found this whole ordeal quite amusing, and my excitement grew as the boy sped up. Thomas didn't share my enthusiasm, and I could hear him grumbling behind me.

We turn a final corner, that reaches a dead end. I thought we had been led the wrong way, as some sort of joke, but the boy keeps going, staring downward through the large grate on the floor of the vent. I wriggle beside him, trying to understand what the point of this was. All I could see was the shiny, pearl white floors. Thomas finally catches up and mimics us on the opposite side of the grate.

We sit there for a few seconds, and I get extremely bored. Just as I'm about to start flicking Thomas to keep myself occupied, something shifts beneath us, and I hear footsteps. I snap my attention to the scene below, and can see Doctor Crawford speed walking down the hall, constantly checking behind her with an anxious look across her face.

She's soon followed by a light beeping. Thomas and I shift our positions so that we can get a closer look, but nothing could've prepared us for the sight.

A box, almost like a glass casket, wheels along behind her, accompanied by two nurses. The top has a screen that shows an image of the human body, along with many vitals and statistics. The end of the contraption is a plain white sheet, moulded in the shape of human legs.

What. The. Fuck.

I spin around to Thomas' side to follow them as they slip from my view. I see her swipe a keycard on a large door that splits open, and they push the body through it, out of our sight.

"What the hell was that?" Thomas asks, a look of utter disbelief lacing his features. "They bring in new ones every night, like clockwork." The skinny boy replies. "You know what they do with them?" Thomas continues, but the boy shakes his head. "This is as far as I've ever gotten. The vents don't even go into that section. But once they go through that door, they don't come back out."

I wonder how long he's been here. It has to of been a while if he managed to find all of this, and memories the confusing twists of the vents.

"I don't think anybody really leaves this place." There's a deep hint of sorrow as he says this. As though he was thinking about someone in particular.

"Come on. We've gotta go before somebody notices we're gone." He shuffles back through the vent, and I follow, nudging Thomas to break him from his trance. He hesitates, "Why did you show me this?"

"Because maybe the others will listen to you. There's something weird going on here, and I know you think so too." The boy keeps moving, sticking his head through the tunnel we'd come through, but Thomas stops him.

"Hey, wait. What's your name?"

"Aris."

With that, he crawls through the tight space, and leaves Thomas and I alone to find our way out. It was almost as hard as the maze. We make the journey in silence, both of us quietly contemplating what we'd just seen. A million questions raced through my mind.

Who was that? Where were they being taken? Were they dead or alive?

I hope that mysterious kid would be able to provide some answers to these real soon.

When we finally decipher the twists and return to our room, everyone is still sleeping. We both slip back into bed and face the wall, as if the night had never happened.