Error | The Maze Runner / Newt ? ?

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"Get him off!" I screamed, using the last breath of air I could get into my lungs. "Just get him off!"

The boy went suddenly still as a board. His full weight was still crushing me, blood still dripping onto my face and neck until I was gagging. The pressure in my chest caused heat to blaze to my face- there was no oxygen entering my lungs anymore.

The body was pushed off of me, causing me to suck in a large breath of air. Someone reached down blindly and patted their hands around my arms until they reached under them and hauled me to my feet. I could feel my face cooling down as oxygen returned to my body. I reached up and wiped the blood from my cheek and around my neck. A shiver ran down my spine when the substance stuck to my hands.

"Are you okay?" It was Thomas again. His voice sounded slightly shaky as he released me.

"I think so," I replied. "What happened?"

I could hear Thomas's ragged breaths coming out of his mouth as he struggled to find words that had escaped his grasp.

"What happened!" Minho demanded much more harshly than I had.

Thomas groaned. "His head wasn't a head. It was like a...a big...metal ball. I don't know, man, but that's what I felt. Like his shuck head had been swallowed by... by a big metal ball."

I shivered at the memory of the cool, sleek metal grazing my ear. It had swallowed the boy's head whole.

"What're you talking about?" Minho questioned.

"Didn't you hear it rolling away after he stopped screaming? I know it—"

"It's right here!" Newt shouted, followed by a heavy grating sound and him grunting. "I heard it roll over here. And it's all wet and sticky- feels like blood."

Blood. I could feel some of it still sticking to my neck. My sleeve rubbed at it again, but only water could get it off now, and I couldn't risk wasting it. I felt sick to my stomach upon the realization that a corpse had been pinning me down for at least two minutes until Thomas got it off of me. The blood that had sprinkled my face was coming from the gaping wound of a head that had been ripped clean off.

I felt tears sting the corners of my eyes. The boy had died because I ducked. It was aiming for me. The question prodded at the back of my mind, though I already knew the answer. What would have happened if I had ignored those instincts?

"What the klunk," Minho said quietly, which pretty much summed up my thoughts at the moment. "How big is it?"

Really? He was going to ask how big it was when a boy had just been decapitated?

I was about to voice this, but others chimed in questions of their own. I retreated back into silence, deciding that the buzzing of my stomach would only turn out worse if I spoke.

"Everybody slim it!" Newt yelled over the noise. It ceased immediately. "I don't know. Bigger than a buggin' head for sure. It's perfectly round— a perfect sphere."

"We need to run," Thomas urged. "We need to go. Now."

"Maybe we should go back," Harvey suggested meekly. "That thing just sliced off Frankie's head, just like the voice told us."