MISTAKE | Minho / The Maze Runner

fifteen

The Box came up. It wasn't supposed to. This wasn't supposed to happen, not yet. Not a day after they got a new Greenie. Alby and Newt shared a worried look.

There were supplies in the Box, but there was also a person. They were lying down, as if they were still asleep.

Newt was the first to take action, jumping into the Box.

He looked up at Alby, a strange expression on his face, as if he didn't know what to feel, "It's a girl," he whispered.

Alby helped Newt out of the Box, leaving the girl with long, dark hair in there. She was shockingly pale and knocked out cold.

"Get Vera," Alby said.

Newt nodded, running to the Med-hut.

But Vera wasn't in there. Clint and Jeff were busy, both tending to Gladers who had injured themselves during work.

"Where's Vera?" Newt asked.

Clint looked up, pausing for a moment, "she hasn't been here yet. Think she's still asleep, she was out pretty late with Minho."

A smirk was on his face as he got back to stitching up the Glader's cut.

Newt new something was wrong immediately. No matter how late she stayed up, she always showed for work. She wasn't one to slack off like that. He went to her room first, hoping that maybe Clint was right.

At first Newt thought the girl was asleep. She looked so peaceful, her ginger hair standing out against the white pillow.

But she wouldn't wake up.

She had no pulse.

He ran to the Med-hut, probably the fastest since he was a Runner. He was screaming for the Med-jacks, which Alby took notice to immediately. He ran over, following Newt and the Med-jacks to the Homestead. Into Vera's room.

Clint was kneeling beside her, and when he looked up, there were tears in his eyes getting dangerously close to falling.

"She's dead," he whispered, wincing like he couldn't believe he'd ever have to say those words.

"No, no. That's impossible," Newt muttered, "she was fine, alive, just last night. How did she die in her sleep?"

That's when Newt started yelling. It was odd for him, to yell like this. Newt was a quiet, gentle person in nature, but his best friend was dead. His best friend who was always full of love and happiness and was always so quick to help out. She was gone.

Clint and Jeff were crying too. Three years they worked with her, three years that they spent talking and laughing and working together as Med-jacks.

Alby had a pained look on his face, like he couldn't believe this was true. His first thought was Minho. How would he tell him? Minho was violent and unpredictable sometimes, there was no saying how he would react to this news.

He knew he had to be the one to tell the other Gladers. He was the leader after all.

He rounded them all up, his mind anywhere but the girl in the Box.

He didn't know what to say. How did he tell them that the girl they all came to love, was dead?

"Something happened," he said, a serious expression on his face.

"Is this about the girl?" Winston asked.

Alby shook his head, eyes trained to the floor. He didn't have it in him to look at their faces.

"It's Vera. She's dead."

Chaos erupted in the Glade. Questions were being thrown around; people were crying. Gally was the first to react.

He punched the side of the Homestead, a cut already forming on his knuckles.

"It's the girl in the Box," he yelled, "the day she shows up, is the same day Vera dies!"

If Alby thought it was bad before, after what Gally had said, the Gladers seemed to lose control. It was like they all collectively agreed with Gally, and a part of Alby, against his better judgment, agreed too.

Gally turned to Thomas.

"You!" he screamed, "you did this! I saw you and the girl in the Changing! You worked with the Creators! You did this to Vera!"

All hell broke loose when Gally threw a punch, aiming directly for Thomas' face.