𝐒𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋//𝐆𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘𝐗𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐑

YASSS ZIPLINING

Y/n's Point Of View:

After Victor kissed me for the first and his self proclaimed only time we sort of sat there on the linoleum. Him with an arm slung around my shoulder, me with my head tucked against his chest. Us holding each other.

He brought me comfort. I brought him comfort. I wasn't the only one who had lost a lover in the maze. Victor did too.

"Sit very still." I ordered, creeping my fingers up his arm.

"Why should I?"

"Your freckles." Cupping his face burnt with freckles, I brushed my thumb against a wild patch of them scattered across his skin. They looked like Gally's did. Maybe that's why I was so fond of them. "I'm going to count them."

"Try your best." Victor sighed, closing his eyes. I kissed his cheeks, counting numbers between giggles as I alternated my lips on the sides of his face.

"One...Two...Three...Four...Five..."

"Your gonna be counting for a long time." He chuckled, leaning his body weight onto me.

"We've got all the time in the world." I smiled softly, burying a kiss on his collarbone. Victor's Adams Apple bobbed against his throat. Nestling myself by his neck, I kissed it too.

"Fuck- Ah-h-h- You don't wanna do that." He choked, forcing me back by my shoulders. Blood had rushed to his face, his chest rising and falling.

"Why not?"

A shock of euphoric adrenaline jolted into me. I can't deny that I loved the feeling it gave me. I loved playing the cat and mouse game. I loved being pursued. I loved being desired. It gave me a sense of power. I was powerful.

I'd grown used to it in the glade. I was conditioned to the idea of being made into an idea. I lived being the object of someone's affection. I was used to it. I craved it. Now, the feeling was so close. I was clawing for it.

"I can't."

"Why," My hand tentatively stretched out onto his chest. "Not?" Victor shook at my touch, balling his hands into fists.

"Because I don't wanna touch Gally's girlfriend!" Blurted from his mouth, a look of horror following his words. The sentence hit me harder than anyone possibly could.

"Gally's not alive." I whispered, removing myself from him. "He's dead." Skull pounding, I hugged my shoulders. "I don't get it. I thought people wanted me to be happy and when I was they thought there was something wrong with me." My brows furrowed, unable to look at Victor, eyes feeling like they'd been pricked with pins. "Then when I'm how you've wanted me to be, you don't want it." Voice quavering, I dug my nails into my palm. "I thought people wanted me to get over him, but now they don't? Why can't I do anything right?"

A moment of silence passed before Victor spoke. He placed a light hand in my shoulder.

"You're confused." He soothed in a hushed voice. "It's not that you're not doing anything right, it's just that you're in pain."

"I don't want to be in pain." I said through gritted teeth, trying to force a lone tear back into my eyes. "Pain is weak." Victor shook his head in disagreement, cautious in the way he was touching me.

"Pain is beautiful..." He settled on an appropriate hand holding for the situation before finishing his thought. "Pain is necessary because without it how would we know joy or love or sex or peace or anything else?"

"Gally is pain." Biting my lip, I tried to keep back from crying.

"Gally isn't just pain. Gally is all those happy moments you had with him too."

"I wish I could forget." I murmured, falling back onto Victor's chest, defenseless. "Sometimes I wish I never existed, like I was erased from history. There wouldn't be so many problems if I wasn't here."

"It'd be a crime to erase a piece of art." Victor held onto me, warm like a heated blanket. "I wouldn't be here if you weren't here."

We stayed like that for a while. I almost would've fallen asleep if a familiar obnoxious voice hadn't surged into the bathroom, rattling the building. Fucking Janson.

"Ladies and gentleman, this is the World Catastrophe Kill-zone Department!" His voice boomed from the sound of some hyper loud speaker. It was coming from outside. "We have your compound completely surrounded! You find yourselves, through no fault of your own, in possession of WICKED property! Return them to us unharmed! It seems like there's been a simple misunderstanding! Or if you resist, every last one of you, will die!" Screams echoed from the warehouse below. All I could think of was those families. The mother kissing her child on it's forehead. "It won't be long before the flare wipes out the rest of us! The hope of a cure lies in your hands! The choice, is yours!"

"That sick bastard." My body tremored with rage, wanting to see Janson myself to rip him apart. "Why can't he just leave us the hell alone?!"

A pair of footsteps ran toward the bathroom door, the person ripping it open. The door swung back, revealing a panting Brenda.

"You two." She flicked her head towards the exit, motioning us to our feet. "Go go go!"

Victor interlaced our fingers, the first to rush us out of there. Brenda regained the lead, joining us back together with our friends. A song with a jazzy Hawaiian tune filled the room up to the brim.

"You guys! Oh my God, are you guys okay? How was the pit?" I broke away from Victor to give an outstretched hug to Chuck. Embracing him felt so nice to do after the hurt that we'd passed each other. "I missed you Chuck." I said lowly, scrunching up his hair before pulling away.

"I missed you-"

"Hate to interrupt the reunion but we gotta go like five minutes ago!" Brenda pushed me away from Chuck, towards where Jorge was running off to. My shoes were practically skidding from how she was tearing me along.

"Brenda!" Jorge called out, a duffel bag wrapped around him. "Hurry, we don't have much time." Much time till what? "Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go! Right this way!"

Brenda shoved me toward where Jorge thrusted open a set of doors that led outside. A terrifying drop awaited me.

"Oh you gotta be kidding me." Frypan fretted, eyes widening at the impossible feat. It had to have been hundreds of feet down. One slip up and I'd be done for.

"Holy shit..." I breathed.