Newt x Reader || A13

11 | A13

"In this one." I approach Julian placing my hand on the door right next to his. Pieces are falling into place. Small, but progress. Thomas has his own lab, just like mine. I wonder which number is engraved on the floor of his. I sigh, staring at the metal in front of me. He's so close.

But there's no way.

I taught myself to let go, but removing my hand from the door feels like severing heartstrings.

"It's fine." I back away, and head back to the holo. "I have to keep working." Julian crosses the lab in two strides to stand next to me.

"Wait." He puts his hand over mine, and I recoil, the sudden contact entirely foreign. Julian looks at me for a second , a strange expression written across his face, and then enters something new into the holo after scanning it with his wrist.

A blueprint pops up.

I gasp. It's a first draft, but it's massive, and immensely intricate.

"We have this to work on now." Julian sits down next to me and begins to explain. I listen intently, thankful for this new distraction.

- - -

Before me is a creature like nothing I've ever seen before. It's a giant machine, form resembling a spider, but it's designed differently. It's clearly designed to kill.

It has four claw-like arms with deadly sharp edges which grate horribly against the stone floor with each stride, leaving white scratches on the greying maze walls. Its face is horrible, making me want to shrivel up on sight.

"What-" I pant, "is that?"

"That," Julian says tersely, "is a griever." My voice fails me as there's a brief moment of silence. Then, with a horrible, shattering cry, the griever abruptly lunges forward, flinging its steel claws as us.

"Go!" Gabe yell; we take off through the closing walls of the maze.

"Shit shit shit shit shit." Julian cusses with each step, every one seeming as if it's in slow motion. There's no way we can outrun this creature. No hope.

"This way!" Julian hollers as we round a corner, out of the closing section. "Come on!" I push myself to run faster as the griever closes in on us. I can feel its presence behind me with each step, almost like I can already feel its teeth sinking into my flesh.

As we round another corner, I feel my legs  begin to give out on me. I'm not built for this; I'm out of shape, at the very best, and losing hope.

Gabe passes me with his longer strides, and I'm left at the back of our group. The griever howls again, its cry echoing through the maze and into the night. As I run, I wonder if the Gladers can hear it, and if they can, if they're wondering about us right now.

No Glader has ever survived a night in the maze. I think back to when Newt first told me about this. That night, by the maze entrance, when he carved my name into the wall..

I can still picture his sandy hair and brown eyes in the firelight as he held my face and told me how he felt.

And I ruined it.

I was stupid to ruin it, to want this, and now I'm going to die in here. I'm about to die, and all I can think of is him. Of Newt.

"We can't outrun it- we'll never make it!" Gabe shouts over the clanging of the Grievers claws on the ground.

"Up here!" Julian hollers, gesturing to a vine leading to a lower maze wall. He waits for me to catch up, then grabs my waist and throws me up. I catch the lowest vine and cling to it with everything I have, mustering up from the scraps of my energy the strength to pull myself up. I can hear Julian behind me as I climb the wall, never looking down, in fear of falling. I hear the griever behind us, howling still. Blood pounds in my ears as I climb.

Once I reach the top, I sling myself over, breathing heavy from the climb. Julian follows shortly after, and so does Gabe. We're all tired, but we have to keep moving. I turn around to keep running when my heart drops. There's nowhere to run. We're on a square platform, and the only way out is off the edge.

Julian turns and looks directly at me. His lips part as if he's going to say something, then I hear Gabe scream my name.

"Behind you!!" I turn too late and can only watch as one of the griever's claws sinks into my right thigh. I scream as a blinding pain pierces through my leg.

Instantly, the griever retracts its arm, ripping it out of my thigh. Blood spurts out in a thick onslaught, soaking the stone a sickening crimson. The claw has torn a hole in my cargo pants, and the wound is deep. I am blinded by pain, and I fall, writing on the floor.

On my leg, a sickening white is visible beyond crimson layers.

"Shit!" Julian yells and rushes over. The griever readies for another attack, and I look up at it through the pain. Is this how I die? I close my eyes and prepare for the strike, but it never comes.

Instead, there's grunting, and Julian yells, then silences himself quickly. I open my eyes. Gabe spars with the griever, poking at it with an unlit wooden torch, but doing nothing of significant damage . As blood sleeps out of my wound, i realize there is no way out. We are running out of time. Julian looks at me, his grey eyes pleading with me to stay with him.

Finally, Gabe lifts his head and stops fighting. The griever pauses for a moment, and in that moment, Gabe looks back at Julian and nods once.

It's so quick that I can't be sure if it ever truly happened.

Then, with his bare hands, Gabe tackles the griever, sending both him and it over the edge of the platform and down countless stories back into the maze.

"Gabe!" I shriek, ignoring my pain. I crawl to the edge and peer over, dragging my leg beneath me.

As soon as I see Gabe, I wish I hadn't.

The griever is on top of him, tearing him apart with metal limbs far from the scalpel of surgeons. Blood and chunks of flesh fly everywhere as the ruthless assault continues, landing on the ground, the walls.

And the sound- never have I heard someone scream like this. It's haunting.

I let go. The tears come easy now- not just from  the pain in my leg, but from everything that's happened in the last month. It is my fault.

Julian wraps his arms around me as we lie by the edge of the platform, listening to Gabe's dying screams pierce through the night.