A Way Back - The Maze Runner (♡Newt) UNDER EDITING/REWRITE

Chapter 23

Newt's pov

Left, left, right, left.
     I was making my way through the Maze. I hadn't reached my section yet, so I wasn't taking notes, but a sound made me look behind me. It wasn't a Griever. There weren't any metallic sounds. No, this was different. It was.... footsteps?
     It sounded like someone was running behind me. Normally, I wouldn't have thought anything about it, just another Runner making his way to their section. But this time, it didn't feel right. Something inside of me made me stop and turn around. I ran back into the direction I had come from, only to have someone collapse with me at full speed. I lost my balance, shot back, and fell to the ground. The other person falling on top of me.
     Recovering from the first blow, I opened my eyes to see it was Cally who had run me over. She was lying on top of me, her hands keeping her upper body high. Bloodshot red eyes stared right into mine, green vines still visible in her face and on her arms. Her hair was a mess, tears stained her cheeks, making the dark circles around her eyes stand out even more. Her chest was moving fast, shooting up and down, and her breaths were short and ragged.
     "Cally..." The moment her name had left my lips, her eyes grew wider, as if she had just noticed me for the forst time.
     "N...Newt..?" Her voice was soft and scratchy, sounding as if saying that one word alone was hurting her.
     "Cally, what are you doing here? You should be in bed." I tried to make my words sound steady and reassuring, but seeing her like this scared me.
     Before I knew what was happening, Cally shot up. Using the wall to stay on her feet, once she found her balance, she ran off further into the Maze.
     "Cals, come back!" I called after her, but she didn't react and only kept running.
     I started running after her. Normally, she was faster than me. But this time it was different. Adrenaline pumped through my body while my mind started to race. How could this happen? Why is she running? A few hours ago, she was just fine. Recovering. Lying in bed, too weak to even stand! How can she be running? She had talked to me, she sounded better. What is going on with her?
     She turned another corner. And another. Left. Right. Right... Then I realized where she was going. She was heading for the Cliff. Panic welled up inside my chest, ushering me to run even faster. I had to stop her before she reached it. I just had to. 
     The Cliff was getting closer, but so did I. The moment I could reach her, I jumped and tackled her.
     "NO!" She screamed at me. "Let me go!" She was trying to push me off of her, nails digging into the skin of my arms. Pain getting worse the more force she used, but I couldn't let go. Not even when I saw the droplets of red well from my skin where her nails broke through.
     "Let me go! Let me GO!"
     "NO! Cally! Stop! Listen to me!" It didn't matter what I said. She was just screaming through it. Her voice rising more every time I tried to get through it.
     "GET AWAY! GET OUT! LET ME GO! LEAVE ME ALONE!"
     Finally, I got a hold on her arms, pinning them to the ground. She started to bash her head against the floor. "Shut up! Shut up. Shut up." She chanted with every time her head hit the stone floor. Not yelling anymore, mumbling now, almost obsessively.
     "No, no, stop it! Cally, stop it. You're hurting yourself." It didn't matter. She didn't stop. I had to let go of one of her arms to be able to put my hand under her head so she wouldn't be able to make contact with the floor. I could feel my skin rip oped and the warm blood stream over my hand as she now bashed my hand against the stones, but I couldn't tell if it was mine or hers. "Just STOP IT!" I jelled at her.
     Surprisingly, she did stop. Her body seemed to relax before she opened her eyes, staring into mine. Her normally so calm looking brown eyes filled with a mix of anger, pain, and panic. "Do it." She said, her voice still scratchy and soft, but determined and cold. She terrified me.
     "Wha- what do you mean?" Before I had even finished my question, she had already continued.
     "End it. Do it. You know you want to. I know you do. Just jump. Just end it. The pain, the misery it will be gone. Just jump, right now. No one will miss you. Not for long anyway. Jump." Tears started to well up in my eyes, I don't know why those words hurt so much. I have thought about it before, but have her say it to me like this...
     "End it! Right now! Do it! They hate you! I hate you! Just do it!" She screamed. Tears streaming down her face, spit flying out of her mouth with every word. I wanted to ignore her words. Did she mean them? Or was it due to the Changing? Some sic aftermath.
     Her stream of words ot interrupted by her own coughing. She tried to turn around, but couldn't because of me. For a moment, I weakened my grip. Only wanting to let her get it out of her system.
     I shouldn't have. She pushed me off and crawled away. Still coughing. Just now I noticed that she wasn't wearing shoes, her feet were bleeding from scraping against the hard ground.
     "Shut up...." I heard her whisper the moment the coughing had stopped. "Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up...." When she reached the wall, she stood up. Every movement seemed to hurt her. Her breathing still sharp and irregular. Her shaking and bleeding body was impossible to ignore. I couldn't move, staring at her broken body. But she didn't seem to care. She just mumbled those two words to herself. Again and again. "Shut up, shut up, shut up... get out of my head! shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!"
     The last words she screamed. Making me snap out of the frozen state I was in. She had started to smash her forehead against the stone walls now. Still chanting 'shut up' to herself. It looked as if she didn't have any control over her body.
     I jumped on my feet, grabbed her from behind, and pulled her away from the wall. Immediately, she tried to get away. She kicked and screamed at me to let her go. But I couldn't, I couldn't let her hurt herself more. I lifted her from the ground, hoping it would make her lose her balance, so she had to stop struggling, but it just gave her the chance to stab me in the chest with her elbow. I dropped her to the ground and gasped for air.
     As I looked down at her, she was sitting on the ground, her hands grasped her bleeding head, "...help me..." she whispered, her voice so desperate and broken. I knelt down and put my hand on her shoulder. She looked up at me, tears streaming down her face. In her eyes, I could only see pain and panic.
     In a split second that changed, her pupils grew smaller, the tears stopped, and all her emotions drained from her face. She pulled my knife from its holster and tried to cut her throat. I managed to slam it out of her hand, making it fall down the Cliff we had come closer to without me realizing.
      Again, she shot up and started to run in the direction of the Cliff, but then she dug her heels into the ground, forcing herself to stop mid-sprint. Stumbling before she started to limp towards the wall. Staggering as if she had completely lost her equilibrium.
     "Get out of my head..." She whispered... no... begged was more like it. "I can't take it anymore... make it stop..." Cally dropped down to the floor, her hands pressed against her head. "Please, please just make it stop...." She had broken down crying softly. Her body jolted with every sob.
     I slowly approached her, scared that if I scared her, it would set her off again, and it would all start over. I knelt down, and after a slight hesitation, I lay my hand on her back.
     "What's happening to me?" She managed  to ask me between sobs.
     Not even as much as considering that she might lose it again, I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her against me in a hug. "It's going to be okay, Cally. I promise."
     "I... I can't take it... it has to stop..." she sounded so broken and scared, I wanted to help her, but I couldn't do anything except for what I already was doing. "Make it stop..." she whispered one more time before I felt her loose consciousness in my arms.
     We just sat there like that. I was leaning against the wall with Cally cradled in my arms, unconscious and bleeding. I had my eyes closed, tears streaming down my own face now, together with a few sobs. I shook my head and took a few deep breaths, trying to force myself to calm down, get my strength back together so I could carry her back into the Glade. She needed a Med-Jack. I had to get her back, but I was too weak to do it. My hand alone already felt like multiple bones had been broken.
     Footsteps came at us from behind us. The echo of them fast and steady. I opened my eyes to see Minho running straight to us. The moment he was close enough, he stopped, staring at us with horror in his widened eyes. "What the hell happened here?"
     I just shook my head. "I don't know... just help me get her back to the Glade."
     I didn't have to say it twice. Minho and I carried her back to the Glade and into the Homestead. Jeff jumped up the moment he saw us. "What happened? How-"
     "You tell me!" I snapped at him. "Wasn't she under your supervision? How could you let her run into the bloody Maze!"
     Minho placed a hand on my shoulder, "Calm down." He said, but I didn't listen and slammed his hand away.
     "Well? How could you let this happen!" I couldn't remember the last time I had ever yelled at someone with this amount of anger before.
     "Newt!" Minho grabbed my shoulders and shook me. "Calm down." He ordered me, his voice steady but piercing. "You're no good all jacked up."
     I took a deep breath, he was right. I need to calm down. I closed my eyes and tried to steady my breathing. The moment I was calmer, Minho started talking again. "Now, tell us what happened." I sat down on the bed beside the one Cally was lying in and where Jeff was busy cleaning her wounds.
     I started to explain. From the moment I heard her footsteps until she blacked out. About how she talked and moved like she had no real control over herself. How she seemed to shift in and out of self-awareness. When I finally had told everything I could remember, I threw my hands up in frustration and let them slap back down on my legs.
     "It just doesn't make sense!" I took another deep breath before turning my attention to Jeff again. "Is she going to be alright?"
     Jeff was still busy wrapping bandages around her cleaned wounds. "I think so... nothing's broken. She doesn't need stitches. She only needs to rest and recover from the Changing like the others. Maybe she has a concussion. But I can't tell while she's unconscious."
     "This never happened before, did it?" I asked.
     "No, it hasn't. Not that I know of." Jeff answered me. Of course, there wasn't. I had been there longer than he had, but still, I had the urge to ask questions. Do something. 
     Minho, who had sat down beside me, lay his hand on my shoulder again. "Maybe it's better if we go. Let Jeff do his thing. Fix her up. She'll be alright."
     I nodded, stood up, and followed him out of there. No matter how much my hand hurt. I hoped it wasn't broken, but seeing I could still move al my fingers despite of the pain I assumed it was okay enough. I couldn't be there right now anyway. The vision of Cally screaming and kicking and trying to slice her own throat was too much already. I had to get away from her for a moment. Her words still fresh on my mind. I wanted to push them away, but I couldn't. 
     'End it. Just end it. I hate you. Just jump.'
     She had a point. It could all just be over.... no more pain or misery...
     "Hey! Newt. Ya listening, buddy?" Minho snapped me out of my thoughts.
     "What?"
     "You know she's going to be okay. No need to worry. Let's just get you cleaned up, get some food, and calm down. Okay?"
     I looked down at myself, my hands and clothes covered in blood, "Yeah, good that."

~.~.~

Edited: 19/06/2020