One By One: A Maze Runner Crank Love FanFic

Chapter 23: Him, Minho

The haven looked exactly the same. Dustier and emptier, but the cracks were still there, the old furniture was still there, the boarded up windows and screaming rats and broken ceiling, everything still there.
It hurt Newt to see all of it again. He had secretly hoped that it would be different. He hoped maybe cranks had gotten in and ripped the place apart, ripped everything to bits, everything he'd gotten used to.
It didn't make sense to him how everything could still be the same when everything else had been destroyed. It didn't seem fair.
Newt had told the rest of the boys to stay inside the berg while he checked the haven for threats, and obviously for Minho. Day and Stanley insisted they come in with him. Nobody would leave him alone after the death of Thomas.
Day and Stanley had walked off together to investigate the room that used to used for the infirmary and see if they could salvage any supplied they left behind when they left for the Wicked mission.
That was only a few weeks ago, but it seemed like it was in another lifetime.
With shuddering steps, Newt walks up the broken and creaking staircase to where his room used to be.
Along the way he pulls back the curtain of a cracked window, one of many that they covered up incase Wicked was looking for them.
Outside he sees the large, gleaming silver berg. For a moment, a jolt of panic goes through him at the sight. Then he remembers, it's not Wicked. There is no more Wicked. They're almost safe.
Safe. It was an absurd word to Newt. How could they be safe when the Gladers had Newt among them, a rapidly mood-changing crank? He could feel, even now, the pull and push of craziness in his mind. It urged him to do stupid things and say things he's never normally say aloud.
He quickly covers up the window again, before his inner crank can persuade him to jump out of it.
Newt finally reaches the top of the stairs and starts down the hallway that leads to his room. There's a lump on the floor, in the shape of a human body. Newts heart stops. He can see from here that the body has decayed. Black veins cover the cranks hands.
Newt makes his way toward the body. Half of him wants to sprint to the body.
Don't let it be Minho.
The other half wants to walk as slow as possible, to prevent the horrible.
Please don't let it be Minho.
Newts feet reach the body. It's head is flipped to the side. The rest of the body has rotted so much that it is unidentifiable.
Newt gently turns the bodies head toward him. It flops lifelessly to the side and Newt holds back bile.
The face looks like it had been eaten at. The skull has caved in on itself. The blue lips of the body are still intact, though, and Newt knows immediately it isn't Minho. Spending hours studying Minhos lips has finally come in handy.
After studying the body closer, Newt notices it is - was - a girl with long brown hair.
Swallowing hard, newt continues. He stops outside the door to his room.
As much as it hurts to see everything intact, he knows it's better for all the gladers. He's not sure what they're going to do next, but it's good to know that the haven is still in tact enough to accommodate them when needed.
Newt leans close to the door to see if he can hear anything. At first he thinks he hears a fluttering of wings but then realizes it's his own rapid heartbeat.
He takes a step back.
Deep breaths.
It seemed like everything that happened was building up to this. This moment. Whether Minho was in this room or not determined everything. Newt knew that if Minho came back to the Haven, he'd be in Newts room. He'd checked the whole of downstairs anyway, and this was the last place in the haven that meant something to Minho.
You can't become dependent, Newt scolded himself.
The thing with this world of his was that dependence was the most fatal flaw.
Not the flare, not Wicked, not the threatening cranks.
Dependence, love, trust. They decide if you survive out here.
Thomas, Newt thought, knew that all too well.
With a tight breath in, Newt grabs the door handle and walks in.
Minho sits there, innocently playing with a thread.
And although he'd had been doing it this whole time, Newt finally felt like he could really breathe.