Night Visions (TMR) (Newtmas)

26

Merry Newtmas!

There was no concept of time as he went through the Changing.

At first, it was pretty much like his first memory of the Box—dark and cold. This time, though, he had no sensation of anything touching him. He floated in emptiness, staring into a void of black. There was nothing to see, nothing to hear, nothing to smell. There was nothing. It was like someone had stolen all five senses, leaving him in a vacuum.

The initial fear morphed into curiosity, and then into boredom.

Finally, after an interminable wait that could have lasted either a second or a whole year, things started changing.

He felt wind in his face and clothes. The air began moving around him, and a column of spinning grayish smoke began forming in front of him. There was nothing he could do; he could only stare as the tornado got bigger and bigger. Breezes that turned into gales slapped his face and his body, hurting him. The column of mist stretched and stretched until he could see nothing else. And then it started getting closer to  him.

Was this the Changing? Where were the memories? Maybe it didn't work on him because he wasn't like the others. Maybe he had undergone the excruciating pain of a hundred stings for nothing. Or was this the normal thing?

He had no more time to wonder after the column hit him; he could only see flat white all around. And then it consumed him; the mist took his mind, memories flooded his thoughts.

Everything else turned into pain.

"...Thomas? ...You hear...? ...Chuck, are you ...kay? Don... die."

His brain was collapsing with information. It was like his memories had been kept from him behind a prey that had just broken, and they were now flooding his mind with the strength of a thousand roaring tempests. It was somehow similar to standing under an electric storm, because each time a memory was put back in its place, he felt as if lightning struck him. And there were many memories.

It was both mentally and physically exhausting, comparable to a non-stop marathon across the Maze being chased by Grievers. His whole body ached from the effort of accepting and making room for the memories of a whole life. For all the secrets. For all the knowledge. Thomas suspected that the marathon with the Grievers would have been less painful.

Everything came crashing into his mind. The Glade, the Grievers, the stinging needle, the Changing, the experiment. The Maze couldn't be solved. Their only way out was something they'd never expected. Something terrifying. He was responsible for it all. All.

The visions finally made sense, because now he recalled the full story. He had all the pieces of the puzzle and he had them in place. He now remembered how he met Newt and Teresa, his heart's two big question marks. He remembered what they were to him. He remembered...

We're supervising the plans of the Maze. One single wall out of place and it won't work. Teresa insists that not even the grown-ups can be as stupid as to mess up building what we've designed, but I definitely don't trust them that much. Not when they're constructing the result of years of research.

Teresa smiles at me from her table. She's sipping her mug of tea, from which a shy spiral of smoke faintly rises. She's always loved it hot.

I want to get to my room and write today's events down in the notebook; more precisely, in the ripped pages. My little experiment has turned out so well I can barely stand sitting in this chair, studying more and more patterns. I want to shout it out to the world.