A/N:
Heyhey!
from now on I'll be writing these chapters in 3rd person instead!
Some day I will go back to change the other chapters to 3rd person as well, but that day will probably not be any time soon.
Have a nice day/evening/whatever it is!!
~ Purple Dragon
~.~.~
Never in her entire life had Cally ever seriously considered cannibalism until three days into this nonnutritious prison.
Okay maybe the girl wasn't that serious about considering cannibalism, but she would never admit to any of her fellow Gladers how many times the thought crossed her mind as she couldn't do anything else but lay around to reserve what little energy she had left. Obviously, Cally would rather starve than actually hurt any of those Slintheads, but it seemed that that possibility started to become a lot more likely with the hour.
Never had hunger hurt so much. As if a wild animal got caged inside her stomach and tried to scratch and gnaw and bite its way out at any cost. Trying to rip through her body, or whatever was left of it by now anyway. Cally needed more than just water and a salve to heal her injury and the fever she'd had had worn her down significantly. It was true that the human body could go about three weeks without food, but those statistics were based on healthy bodies and the brunette's was far from it right now.
Nausea and vertigo had become Cally's constant companions together with a splitting headache and the occasional burning pain in her chest and throat whenever some stomach acid got sent up. The only thing she could do about that was drink water to force it back down, leaving a sour, acidic taste in her mouth every time. She'd known acid flux was a thing, but until now she thought you were either born with it or got it when you're older, apparently it can also happen when you're starving and your stomach gets upset enough. Something Cally could have lived without finding out first hand but whatever.
Just like everyone else, the young woman tried only to move if she had no other choice, either to drink or go to the bathroom or change the bandages on her side. Otherwise, none of them bothered anymore. There were barely any conversations between Gladers anymore either, and the complaining had ceased as well. Even from Minho, which unsettled Cally the most.
At some point, she'd had brought up that they could trick their brains into thinking it got food by pretending to eat. Most Gladers thought it a bunch of klunk, but some did try and had thought it had helped a little. Including herself, but now, on the third day of nothing to sooth the hungry animal inside of her, she had given up on it. Her brain done with being tricked. It wouldn't fall for the same trap any longer, so it no longer had any effect on her whatsoever.
Cally watched Newt as he got up and walked towards the bathroom. Jaw set, eyes sunken in a pale face, leaning on his good leg as much as possible.
She hated that she couldn't do anything to help him, or any of them, really. But still, she wanted to talk to him about everything. Things had been a little off between them since she had woken up. The first initial hug basically being the only physical contact he had initiated. If they did happen to be close, Cally would sometimes reach for his hand or brush her fingers against his. He never pulled away, sometimes the lightest brush of her fingers was enough for him to take her hand in his and move his thump in circles over the back of it, but that was about the most intimate thing he seemed comfortable with right now.
Of course, Cally had tried (and failed) not to overthink it too much. All of them barely talked, and no one had the energy or strength to move around. So it didn't have to mean that he was mad at her or lost interest or anything like that... right?
She regretted not just having initiated a conversation with him after she'd talked to Felix. Sure, Clint had been right, she needed to rest, but now? The longer she waited the harder it all became. Especially keeping her eyes open became more difficult with the hour.
Most of the time, Cally would just be asleep, just like everyone else. Their new rhythm had become, drink, pee, sleep, repeat. Sometimes, Cally would see some Gladers clench their stomachs as if pressing down on it helped with the pain. Maybe it did. Or maybe it was like pressing down on a bruise. Everyone know it will hurt, but for some reason, everyone still does it as if expecting another outcome this time.
Ones again, Cally must have fallen asleep because the next time she opened her eyes, Newt lay in the bed on the opposite side of the room as her again. It took Cally a moment to realize his eyes were open as he stared at some spot on the floor, either deep in thought or with no thoughts at all. Hard to tell.
Then, one of Cally's ears tweaked when she heard a soft buzz. At first, the girl waved it off as a symptom of her physical state. She used to hear ringing in her ears whenever she passed out or had low blood sugar, but when she noticed Newt pushing himself up and twisting his head to hear better, Cally did the same. "You hear that too?"
Newt nodded, "Yeah, it's comin' from the other room." The two weren't the only ones noticing the new sound, but most Gladers just glanced around, deducted there wasn't any direct danger, and just lay back down again. A handful, including Newt, Minho, Felix, and Cally, pushed themselves from their beds.
Cally legs trembled at the effort it took for her to stand, and when she stumbled a bit at her first few steps, Felix was right there, arm around her shoulder to help her out. "Maybe stay here until we know what's out there?" He asked in a soft voice.
Cally shook her head no, if something really was happening, she needed to know right now. She couldn't stand the nothing but hunger anymore.
Without any other kind of protest, they made their way to the room where before the dead bodies had hung from the ceiling. The two were the last ones to enter and froze immediately upon seeing the giant pile of food in the middle of the room. With no second thought Fe let go of Cally and with a new found energy he sprinted towards it. Joining the group of Gladers who had seen it before them.
Now with her support gone, Cally barely managed to catch herself on the doorfrme before falling over. Her attention, however, had only been with the food until her eyes fell upon something more unsettling.
There, in the corner of the room, sat a man behind a desk, reading a book. The man had grey hair, a small mustache and wore and entirely white suite. His legs rested on top of the desk besides a stack of papers and file maps.
The man did not look up, which made it a little more difficult to really see his face properly, but something about him seemed so unsettling familiar to Cally.
"Here." The young woman got drawn out of her thoughts when Felix pressed an apple into her hands. "Eat."
"Mm? Yeah, thanks." She took a bite. The moment the sweet fruit entered her mouth, she forgot all about the man. Her first instincts told Cally to eat as much as possible before it all disappeared again, and it took her all of her self-control to pace herself. Eating too much too soon on an empty stomach would only make her throw it out again.
"Does he seem familiar to you?" The brunette asked Felix in a whisper voice after finishing her first apple.
Felix glanced at the man in the corner. "Now you say it, he looks a bit like Wormtail, don't you think?"
Laughing still hurt her side, but she couldn't help it. "Ow slim it." She pushed against his shoulder, finding a bit more strength in her arms after eating some fruit. "I'm being serious."
Felix looked her up and down with a frown on his face, "Nah, Sirious Black was way more dramatic, you need to step up your game."
Another wave of laughter in which Felix joined in this time. "You're the worst."
Felix said something in response, but Cally got distracted by seeing her friends Minho and Newt, shoving food into their mouths as if they were competing in a hot dog eating competition. Letting out a deep sign she shook her heads. Idiots. They weren't the only ones, though. Making Cally realize she would have to go make a round to make sure half the Gladers paced themselves. First, though, she would take care of my two favorite idiots.
"Hold on, Fe, I gotta make sure they don't make themselves sick." She didn't really wait for an response before making her way over to Newt and Minho, then again he had not really given her a heads up when he let go of her a few minutes ago either so she did not feel too bad about it. "Stop that!" Cally bit at Minho and Newt after making it into hearing range. The two froze, staring at me with startled expressions. "Eat that fast and you'll throw it back out again, pace yourselves, you fucking Slintheads."
Minho and Newt exchanged a look before Minho said, "told ya." To Newt, and the two starting to snicker.
"Told him what?" The girl questioned, getting the weird feeling she missed out on something that somehow involved her.
"Nothin'." Newt responded a little too quickly.
"Don't break your head over it." Minho threw a bag of mixed nuts at her as he spoke. Not expecting this and definitely not yet back to her old self, it hit Cally in the chest- she tried to grab it, but instead hit it with her hand, and accidentally threw it to the ground instead.
"You dropped something." Minho so helpfully pointed out while taking another bite from a banana.
"Really?" Cally didn't think she'd ever used more sarcasm in one word before. "I hadn't noticed."
"Thought so, that's why I'm telling you." Cally's probably amazing comeback got interrupted before she could even come up with one as some Shank on the other side of the room threw up. Cally shrunk in, covering her ears in an attempt to block it out. Still a shudder went down her spine and the urge to mimic came over her, but she swallowed it back down.
"I'm gonna go make sure Shanks stop making themselves sicks..."
"You do that," Minho also got up from the ground, cracking his knuckles and neck and turning towards the man in the corner. "I'm gonna get some answers." With that, Minho squared his shoulders and marched towards the guy in the white suit. "Hey! Hey, you! Rat man!"
Cally laughed when hearing Minho's nickname for the man, which got Newt to look at her with a raised eyebrow, which got her to stop, realizing he wouldn't understand the irony without an explenation. "Oh, just- Fe also said something similar."
Newt made an O sound before sending the girl a tight lipped smile. Cally looked at him a little longer after his attention went back to Minho. She'd already had a feeling but now she knew for sure, something was off between them, she just wished he would just tell her what it was.
The man at the desk barely glanced up from the book he was reading, not intimidated by Minho's shouting nor his rapid approach. "I wouldn't do that if I were you." He warned him in the least caring, monotone voice Cally had ever heard.
"Yeah? Why's that? Scared I'm gonna-" A dull bonk, and Minho stopped mid sentence and mid walk. "What the shuck?" Again, Minho went to approach, but more carefully this time, sticking out his hands until they seemed to be pressed against nothing.
"Stop messing around, Minho." Winston, the Keeper of the Slicers, spoke up from the other side of the room.
"I'm not! There is some kind of glass here." As he spoke, Minho seemed to follow the barrier with his hands, going up and down to see if there was an end to it. Honestly he looked like he had recently picked up miming as a hobby.
More Gladers rushed over to inspect it, Newt also got up, but not wanting to leave their conversation at this horrible awkward note, Cally stopped him.
"Newt, wait, I-" he stopped and turned towards her. She wanted to talk about them. She wanted to ask him what was wrong or what she'd done or if they're okay, but instead when his eyes met hers her breath got stuck in her throat and all that she managed to get out was. "Does he seem familiar to you?"
"Who? That guy?" Newt gestured towards the man behind the desk, eyebrows furrowed. "Not even a little. Why? He seem familiar to you?"
Cally nodded her head, taking a step closer to him, not wanting others to overhear. "I saw him during..."
"The Changing?" Newt guessed when Cally trailed off.
She nodded in response, "Yeah... he was calling names, sorting us out... we had to follow."
"Were did he take us?"
Cally breathed in to correct him, she hadn't meant us us, but her and...
"I don't know." Cally managed to bring out. She tried to focus and retrieve more from her memories, but that proved more difficult than it should've been. "I saw..." Him. She saw Newt. He hugged her, made her promise to come back. And she had, eventually. Not that he knows that.
"Cals?" Newt broke her from her thoughts.
"I saw Jenny, my..." She trailed off yet again, not sure what to call her.
"Your best friend, right?" Newt finished when Cally didn't. "The blonde girl from that picture? So she's real too?"
A little surprised he remembered Cally told him about her she nodded, still not sure how to feel about it all. A part of Cally wanted to be happy and excited, but all she felt through the sea of indifference was a single wave of fear.
Cally cleared her throat. "Alive too, at least last Felix saw her."
"Come out you coward!" The girl's head snapped to Minho as he yelled, slamming his fist to the invisible wall together with a bunch of other Gladers. The man behind it only seemed to get more annoyed with the second, clearly not happy to be tasked with being here with us.
Newt bumped his shoulder softly against Cally's to get her attention back. "You don't seem very happy about it..."
"About all of this? Yeah, no shit."
"I meant about your friend." Newton tried carefully, still talking softly not to be overheard. Not that anyone could focus on anything else besides the food and the man.
Cally breathed in deep, then breathed out slowly, her hand finding her brother's necklace. "Just someone else to lose." She eventually spoke, voice barely a whisper.
Newt turned fully to her after her words fully sunk into his brain, "Cals," he moved his hand, gently laying his on the hand with which she held the shark tooth.
Panic jolted through her and immediately she pulled her hand away. Cally didn't exactly know why she did it. She didn't know why him getting close to Ezra's necklace made her want to run. He wouldn't take it from her.... but then why did she feel like he was going to anyways?
Another Shank threw up, and Cally saw her escape. "I'm gonna go around, you make sure Minho doesn't break the room down, yeah?"
She did not give Newt the time to respond and walked away. Checking up with the last shank that didn't keep his food down and went on from there. Cally regretted walking away from Newt almost the moment she'd done so. Even though she avoided looking at Newt after pulling away, she couldn't stop her mind from imagining the look of hurt on his face. Why couldn't she just bring herself to talk about what's bothering her? Why couldn't she just ignore the tightness of her throat and the pressure in her mind and just say the words she wanted to say? It really should not be this fucking hard, right?
Stuffing her mouth with some of the nuts Minho had thrown at her she pushed the thoughts and feelings down. Other things were more important right now. Like making sure her friends got enough vitamins, and iron, and everything else they would need for whatever came next.
Not even halfway done making her way through the room a dull pain pulsed through her head and wounded side, forcing the girl to sit down and catch her breath a little.
"Heard you were going around, telling Shanks to stop stuffing their faces?" Cally looked up to see Clint crouching down in front of her, half eaten pear in one hand and a sandwich wrapped in foil in the other.
"Yep," Cally let the p plop, hoping he didn't notice how much she still struggled with being on her feet. "Idiots keep making themselves sick and I for one can't stand the puking."
Clint let out a short chuckle at her statement, the skin around his nose crunching up a little. His nose still slightly crooked after that one time Gally had headbutted him. "Good that. But what about you?"
"What about me?"
At first, Clint didn't answer with words, he just shot Cally a look that made clear he had seen right through her. When she did not respond or chance her answer, he let out a sign and handed her the in foil wrapped sandwich. "You're still recovering, Cally. Take the sandwich, take it easy and just rest for now. Let Jeff and me worry about those Slintheads, Good that?"
Not really being in a position to argue nor seeing any other option Cally accepted the sandwich, glancing up at her Keeper as she answered, "Good that."
Satisfied with her reaction Clint smiled. "Take it easy." He repeated as he got up, giving the girl a soft pat on the back before leaving her to herself.
With a bit of a defeated sign Cally unwrapped the sandwich and took a bite. It was a little stale, but oh well, beggars can't be choosers.
Not too far from her, just on the other side of the door leading to the other room, Cally could see Minho going to wake Thomas. He handed the guy an apple and of fucking course, the Slinthead went to attack the fruit the same way Bark attacked a piece of chicken. The memory of Cally's little girl immediately made her loose all appetite. Quickly she glanced at Clint to see his attention was no longer with her and pushed herself up from the bed. Clint had told her to let him and Jeff worry about the other Gladers, but she could manage one more person. Besides, Cally really did not want to be on her own.
"Eat it like that and you'll just throw it right back up." She could hear Minho tell the Shank while handing him another apple. "Here's another one and try slowing down this time. Or risk getting scolded by Cally if she catches you eat like that."
"Believe me," Cally spoke up through a small laugh, sitting down on the bed besides Thomas. "Neither of us want that."
Minho scoffed, "I don't believe for a shuck second that you don't enjoy telling us off, Shank."
"I wouldn't have to if you weren't always such of a bugging idiot."
"Don't you have more Shanks to bother with your wisdom or something?"
"Nah," Cally did not feel like telling Minho that she'd basically gotten her own scolding from Clint mare seconds ago. "I saw that Slinthead choke down his food and decided my wisdom was needed here most. But turns out my word has spread through my followers just fine."
Thomas ignored the both of them, too invested in his apple to even care. "This is so good," he mumbled to himself. "This is so shuckin' good."
"You still sound like an idiot when you use Glader words." Cally snickered at Minho's comment, but Thomas still did not give a single fuck about any of their words as he happily munched on.
"Were'd these come from?"
The Keeper of the Runners paused mid chew before he answered, "Found them out in the common room, along with... something else. Shanks who found it all claim they'd just looked a few minutes earlier and nothing had been there, but whatever, I don't care."
Cally did not believe for even a second that Minho did not care, although she did wonder who the shanks where that claimed to have been in the room a second before it appeared. Maybe they'd seen anything else that could've been some kind of sign or maybe had seen the man enter the room. Either way, Minho now had Thomas's full attention. The guy even sat up straight, almost kicking Cally with his legs when he swiped them over the side of the bed.
"What else did they find?"
Minho took another bite while gesturing to the door with his head. "Go look for yourself."
With a role of his eyes, Thomas pushed himself up, swaying a little on his legs before he found balance. Making Cally feel a little better about her own instability. The moment he found his footing Thomas disappeared through the door.
The loud crunch of Minho taking another bite of his apple made Cally turn her attention back to her Asian friend, only to find him already looking at her. His eyes switching to the sandwich in her hand and back at her. "Don't like it?"
It took Cally a moment to register what he meant. "Mm? Oh, no, it tastes fine."
"Than why aren't you eating?"
Cally's eyes went back to the sandwich, a piece of tomato visible now she'd taken a small bite. Darren never liked tomatoes, he always shoved them onto her plate. She wasn't sure if he cared if she liked them or not and honestly neither did she.
No.
Cally's chest tightened and so did her grip on the sandwich. Stop it. Stop thinking about that time. It never happened.
"Cally? Are you good?"
"Yes." Cally answered maybe a little too quickly after hearing the concern in Minho's voice. "I'm just pacing myself." As if to prove her point she took a bite way too big to chew and immediately regretting her decision. She just sat there, awkwardly trying to chew through the bread while Minho observed her, the worried frown impossible to miss. Cally hated the way he looked at her, all of them were dealing with a lot, she did not need any special treatment or concern. And cally would have said so if she could bring out anything else then muffled hums right now.
"Listen, sis-" He stopped himself before finishing the word, eyes flickering down to Ezra's necklace around Cally's neck, and continued with a bit more effort than it should have, "Cally. You can talk to me, if you- you know."
Never mind, having a ridiculous amount of bread in her mouth was exactly what she needed right now, not trusted her voice to be stable if she'd have to answer with words. Unable to speak, Cally send Minho a smile and nodded. Which seemed to have been enough for her friend, because he leaned back, taking another bite from his own food.
"Good. Cuz Newt told me you saw Rat man during... you know."
Cally nodded again, happy with the change of subject. She managed to swallow all the food down. "Yeah."
"Know his name?"
This time Cally shook her head, "As far as I know the guy worked with us before. Saw him divided us in groups." If that was real. She added in her mind, leaving out the part that she had, in fact, seen the man more then ones... He'd been the same man she'd seen singing Happy Birthday to her... But sharing that felt... wrong. She didn't even know for sure if he was the same guy, everything felt so foggy and her memories clearly weren't to be trusted in the first place, so why bother?
Minho shrugged, "whatever, Rat man fits the Shuck-face just fine."
Cally forced a small laugh, hoping it came over as genuine. "Yeah, got that right."
~.~.~
YOU ARE READING
Lost - Scorch Trials (♡Newt) 《Slow Updates》
Fanfiction"Who you are, is just what you've got. What will you become when they take from you almost everything?" - MCR ~ Sequel to A Way Back ~ Cally survived the Maze, only to find herself in yet another crazy chain of tests. Together with her friends she s...
