ASUNDER (I) : tmr newt

68: I'm Blurred

Ella 68

"I didn't think he'd let you out," Zart sits down next to me as I stare down the box hole.

Three days. Three, two, one, lights out, or lights on, or the end or the beginning. Was the Big Bang the end of something before us too?

She would know. She knows everything, and he tore us apart. I remember the clattering and grinding of metal on metal, the bones of the Box mimicking the future of our bones. The ends justify the means, or so they say.

"He didn't," Clint was too busy kissing Jeff to notice I was gone, and Leo is being carried around by Alby everywhere. None of them get the gravity of what is arriving.

Maybe she will come soon.

"Snuck out?"

Not like it matters. "We weren't supposed to be here. That's why the ending hasn't come."

He knows we weren't but he doesn't agree. The extent to which I get it. The smoke man sent us here.

At first, my memories were occurring simultaneously to my experience. Those were the hallucinations. Then, my memory was taking over; forcing me into seizures and delusions. Now, things are becoming clearer. The truth is appearing more and more with each passing second.

I'm thankful that Zart barely talks, and he consequently doesn't ask many more questions. he tells it to me straight or doesn't tell it to me at all. I appreciate that about him.

"I don't like him," I begin. "He ripped me from her."

"Her?" He asks.

I nod, but only do I remember her in glimpses. Her hair, her smile, one or two conversations. Every second with her felt like a universe though, even if one I can only see as my vision blurs at the edges. It was like being strangled. Darker and darker, tunneling and collapsing, and sounds fading.

I remember him more clearly. The Smoke man introduced us, and I refused to help. That was my first mistake. My second, was thinking this plan, whatever it was, was a good idea. My third was thinking I could help. My fourth was thinking I could get back to her. My fifth was thinking they would have to restart. My sixth was thinking they couldn't replace me. My seventh was sitting here right now.

My eighth, one which I am going to try my best not to make, is letting the next boy up survive.

"She was sent where I was supposed to go," although I did this all wrong. I wonder if they sent four boys in our places to the other place. I wonder if she fell in love with one of them, or another girl while I was gone. I wonder if I will ever see her again.

"Do you remember the other girls?" He asks, actually speaking. "The ones who came here?"

I nod. Yes. I wish I didn't.

"He might r ," she comforts the other, although she does so half-heartedly.

I shouldn't have told them no one was allowed to remember, but they had a right to know. Especially since, next month, they are sending her up. Soon, she will forget him.

"It's already been a year." She is bitter, and angry. "I can't believe they roped me into this."

"You're just as good as dead out there as in here," a third cuts in, aggressively drinking her soup to cut off her words.

"At least you have a chance to live, because of this?" The first voice adds, but she doesn't believe it.

"I want them to pay, I don't want a chance to live," she fights, her voice bringing me back to the conversation.

"Amen to that," the third agrees silently. "That's the goal, ain't it?"

When the first doesn't protest, I realise I can make them pay. I realise that it doesn't just have to be me. I couldn't pull it off on my own anyway, with all the locked doors and long sprints it would require, never mind the distraction it would need on the security cameras.

"I know how we do it," I cut in, and everyone listens. "I already have a plan."

I don't know anymore than that. It was my idea, but not my execution.

"I don't know why we are here, but I know it's important." I don't add that it my goal was to destroy it.

"No one knows why we are here," Zart plays with some of the grass along the ground. "The Creators placed us here, in the middle of the Maze. Our best guess is we solve it and get out. I take it you don't think it is that simple."

It isn't. Solve the Maze, with the key, I don't know. I should've become her, and then I could know now, and everything would be fine. Instead, I burned all hope to the ground.

Three days.

"Hey, hey," Zart grabs my hands, reaching up to my face. He wipes something away, but I can't look away from his eyes. I can't shrug myself from his grip. "Ella, El, hey, come on shank, hey."

He continues to repeat this over and over hear him. Although, when I try to speak, I realise I can't. Something in my head burns, and it is shutting itself down. I can't quite think. It really hurts. Like, it hurts like I'm going to have a seizure again, although that was mostly dizzy.

This can't be the memories, or the lack thereof. This is deliberate.

"I need a Med-jack!" He is calling out for it, as my eyes feel heavy.

Zart lowers me to the ground, and I can hear his feet pounding and running away. From the corner of my vision, I see a long bug in the grass, with a bright red light on the end.

"They have these things called Beetle Blades, so they can see what is happening." He looks down at the palms of the hands, as ashamed as he should be by that answer.

That's how he knows about what is happening. If I had agreed, I could've seen her again. Although, I'm not sure I'd want to stare after her day after day, year after year, watching her grow older. Watching her, almost certainly, fall in love with someone else.

"They are not good," I tell him.

"They are working towards the good," he offers, as if he is trying to convince himself more than me.

I don't know. I am to be one of the last ones to go up, and there are only a few months left. He can say it from behind the safety of his computer screen, where he watches them day in and day out. He can't say it to me.

"The ends and the means, or whatever bullshit you're on," I don't have anymore patience to talk to him.

I turn around and leave the room, passing a boy who's face I've seen her too often.

~~~~~

Ooh. Well this is getting fun. Three more days (not our time, there time). I have like, eight chapters left in me? And then its on to the next one.

What do you think the first conversation was about? Who was talking to who? Let me know in the comments.

I'll see you soon, in Leo and Another Reason I am a BAD Person.