Newt: A Broken Boy ↠ The Maze Runner

7

Edited 21/06/16

"Because... you're not."

Those words seemed to be in my head a lot over the next few days. I was twisting them around, pulling them apart, trying to find out what they meant. But deep down, I knew that their meaning was simple: I was going to become one of them. A crank.

I didn't know why I was so surprised. I had never seen myself as immune to anything until Thomas had told me about the 'new generation'. I guess that I thought that he meant everyone was immune, not just a select few.

Another thing that had crossed my mind a lot was the three 'trials'. I understood what they were, and why, but I didn't understand how I would be connected to them - I wasn't immune. I decided to add it to the long list of thing I would ask Thomas when he next visited me, which he had promised to do in a week.

I had nothing to occupy my time those days. After finding out I wasn't immune, showering had sort of lost its appeal, and there wasn't much else to do in my room.

I would lie on my bed, lost in thought for hours on end, wishing that the flares had never hit, and that I could be leading a normal life, in a normal family, in a normal school. Instead, my parents had been dead for almost four years, and my aunt had joined them. I had no idea where my sister was, and I was stuck in a white room, with a brain eating disease on the rampage. No, my situation was definitely not normal.

Thomas visited me every week, more out of the kindness of his heart than anything else. He wasn't obliged to, but came rather to keep me company and answer my questions. He seemed to get more comfortable around me as the weeks went on, more assured that I wasn't going to start attacking him. We became good friends, best friends even.

"Why am I here, anyway?" I asked him, as we were eating dinner together.

"You know," he said. "The trials, finding a cure."

"No," I answered. "That's why you're here. Not me."

"Well... To be honest, it's the fact that I like you."

I stared at Thomas. Never in a million years would I have imagined that the only thing keeping me here was my new best friend.

"We took you in, not knowing whether or not you were immune," Thomas began. "Then we ran some tests and saw that you weren't."

I nodded. Thomas had told me this already.

"And they were going to take you to some... Crank Palace or something."

My eyes widened. Nothing scared me as much as a palace filled with cranks. Thomas saw my expression, and gave me a reassuring smile.

"Don't worry. I convinced them to let you stay. They're considering you for the control group in the trials."

"Wait... what?" This was a surprise to me. I had never thought that there would be a control group for the trials, but now I knew of it, it made sense. You couldn't find out what made people different when you didn't have anybody to compare them with. But me, part of the trials? Even Thomas didn't know exactly what they were going to consist of.

"If you don't want to, then I can ask them not to... If you'd rather go to a Crank Palace and..." Thomas trailed off at my expression.

"No way would I ever want to go to a palace infested by cranks. Ever" I said. "And if you ever say that again, I'll... I'll... I will..." I didn't know what to say next.

I bit my lip, and twisted my food around with my fork. Thomas looked at me, then gave a tissue from the box nearby. I hadn't even noticed that there were tears rolling down my cheeks. He moved over, until he was close enough to put his arms around me.

"Look, Newt," he began. "I didn't mean that. You're going to live a good life, we'll find a cure. You won't ever have to experience the flare, not properly. I promise." I was glad for his words, but I wished he hadn't promised. These days they never seemed to end well.

I leaned back against my chair, and gave a small laugh.

"We're not exactly being very manly, are we?"

Thomas shook his head.

"Who cares. No one's here, right?"He laughed. "And anyway, we don't need to be manly. We need to be... boyey," he said, making the word up on the spot.

"I think you mean boyish." I smiled.

"Yeah. That too." Thomas grinned, showing perfect white teeth that really contrasted with his dark hair and tanned complexion.

We sat in a comfortable silence for a few minutes, our food forgotten.

"Hey," Thomas said. I glanced at him, as if to say, go on. "I want you to see your sister again."

I glanced at him again. The possibility of seeing Olivia again had become almost non-existent in my eyes, with me not being immune and everything.

"And I also want you to meet some other people who work here," he continued.

"Wait. Hold up."

Thomas raised his eyebrows.

"Why now?" I asked. "Why introduce me to everyone now, after all these months?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Thomas said. "I want you to work here, with us, with me."

"Work with... WICKED?"

"Yeah. Because remember: WICKED is good."

~

A/N: Heyhey. I'm really sorry about that ending, I know it's really... tacky, but I couldn't resist. But what did you think of that little Newtmas scene there? I don't have much experience writing scenes like that.

Anyways, happy new year, because it's New Year's eve and everything. If you could vote, comment, whatever, that would be awesome. But if you don't want to, you don't have to. No hard feelings. Whatever. Byeeee!!