teenage wasteland ;; the maze runner

2.26

    florence drifted into a fitful sleep, her dreams clouded by the haze of the drugs that had forced her into unconsciousness. images flickered through her mind, fragments of memories stirring from the depths of her buried past. they carried her back to a time that felt impossibly distant—before her brother's death, before her mother's death, before the maze, before life went wrong.

    before her heart had been broken.

    through the eyes of her younger self, she watched a familiar scene unfold. her aunt violet sat across the table, shuffling a deck of cards with her characteristic flair, a mischievous grin lighting her face. violet challenged florence and her brother to another round of their favorite game—high-stakes go fish. the stakes were never about winning, not really. the loser would have to perform some silly dare: singing a ridiculous song, wearing mismatched socks, or dancing around the room like a fool.

violet had always been their favorite, though florence had often wrestled with a guilty sense of disloyalty to her mother. it wasn't until much later that she'd come to understand her mom's strict demeanor. her mother had carried the weight of responsibility like an anchor, striving to shield them from a world that demanded so much from her. violet, by contrast, had the freedom to spoil them.

violet had no children of her own, no responsibilities beyond her work in the lab—a job she spoke of often but rarely in detail. perhaps it was guilt for the time she spent away or the sterile coldness of her world that drove her to dote on her niece and nephew so relentlessly. she let them stay up far too late, fed them sweets against their mother's wishes, and filled their lives with bursts of unrestrained joy.

she was the fun aunt, the one who made life feel like a series of adventures, however fleeting. in those moments, violet wasn't just their aunt; she was their sanctuary.

in the dream, florence reached for a card from the deck, her small hand trembling with laughter. she almost forgot where she was—forgot the horrors that waited for her when she woke. for a blissful moment, the only thing that mattered was the game, the warmth of her brother's teasing grin, and the sound of violet's voice urging them to hurry up before she "cleaned the floor with them."

then the happy memory began to slip away, dissolving like grains of sand falling through her fingers. reality loomed on the edges of her consciousness—cold, sharp, and relentless. the warmth of her aunt's laughter faded, replaced by the haunting echo of a moment florence had tried to bury deep within herself.

she found herself standing in their family room, a place unrecognizable in its disarray. clothes were scattered across the floor, trash spilled from an overflowing can, and the air felt heavy with the weight of their collective devastation. it had been days—maybe a week—since her mother's death, and the grief hung in the air like a storm cloud.

it was in this wreckage that violet had pulled florence aside to reveal her plan.

"i'm going to save you," she'd said, her voice trembling with conviction. her words were meant to comfort, to assure florence that there was a way out of the nightmare they were trapped in. violet had done everything in her power to shield florence from janson and paige, from the horrors that awaited her outside those walls. her plan was to send florence into the maze, a move violet believed would give her niece a fighting chance.

but florence didn't see salvation. all she could see was betrayal.

violet had expected gratitude, or at least some semblance of relief. instead, florence, blinded by grief and rage, lashed out. she couldn't process the idea that her aunt, the one person she had left, was planning to send her away to what seemed like a death sentence.