WCKD Love | A Newt Fan-Fiction

Chapter 1 - Escape Is Far From Easy

I'm watching the screens showing the kids from Group A, like I do every day. Nothing ever changes. Until a girl showed up in the Glade. I knew she would be there eventually, so I wasn't fazed. I was surprised that the doctors put her up in the Maze so soon after the last subject went, though. Usually, they send one up each month. This time, they waited only three days before they sent her there.

I have loved watching the screens since my father showed me them when I was thirteen. And now, I just celebrated my sixteenth birthday a month ago. But my enjoyment of watching the screens changed when Teresa arrived in the Maze. I had to watch her fawn over the love of my life. Sure, he doesn't know I exist, but it still hurts to watch.

"Katya, sweetheart? Are you okay?"

"Yep. I'm fine. I'm just tired of seeing Teresa follow Newt around like a love-sick puppy," I mumble. I know I shouldn't blame her. She doesn't remember that Newt has a girlfriend back at the Creators headquarters. Newt doesn't even remember. He doesn't remember that he and I were helplessly in love. Every night, we would sneak out to see each other. He would do anything for me, and I would do anything for him. So it killed me to watch him leave me behind and enter the Griever-infested Maze. The only joy I could find was being able to see him through the screens. At least until the day he jumped.

Newt jumped a few months after he entered the Glade.  When it happened, my stomach dropped with him.  I locked myself in my room for days, refusing to see anyone. I cried every tear that could have possibly been in my body, and still more after that. My dad tried his best to comfort me, but he couldn't do anything to make it better. He would try to give me check-ups of Newt's recovery in the Glade hospital, but there was nothing to report. He was unconscious. After nearly two weeks, Dad came to tell me that Newt had woken up and seemed to be doing alright.

We were both relieved when the other Gladers helped him to recover. They never gave up on him. And after he got better, he never gave up on them, either.

Almost a week after Teresa arrived, two Gladers, Minho and the other newbie, Thomas, found a way out of the Maze. Today is the day that they're going to try and escape. They have lost a lot of boys in the short time that Thomas and Teresa have been there. And some people are pretty sceptical about that. Because Thomas is one of the boys who found the exit, a small group of Gladers aren't willing to leave the Glade. It's the only home that they can remember.

5...4...3...2...1. Run. Now they're off, running through the Maze, without a Griever in sight.  That seems suspicious on its own, but the Gladers are too pumped with adrenaline to notice. It stays the same for a couple of hours until they make it to the runway leading to the exit. "Dad, quick. They've made it to the Cliff," I scream, my heart pounding in anticipation.

"I'm coming!"

The horrifying screeches of the Grievers erupt when everyone turns the corner. Teresa and a little boy named Chuck are given explicit instructions to sprint straight past the mess of boys versus squishy robot monsters to open the exit.

"Come on, Chuckie. You can do it," I cheer, bouncing in my chair.

"Don't you think you should cheer for Teresa as well?" My dad asks, one eyebrow raised.

"What? No, she doesn't bloody deserve it," I spit.

Janson only shakes his head in response. We eagerly watch the Gladers battling the Grievers. Man against machine. Wooden poles and against metal legs. Chuck and Teresa make it to the door and yell to Minho for the code as he fights a Griever. After typing it in, they call the surviving Gladers to get into the small, cylindrical room. When everyone is in, the door slams shut.

"Newt, are you okay?" Teresa asks into the inky blackness.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Are you?"

"I'm glad you shanks are so pleased to hear that I'm still alive and kicking," Minho adds, and a few Gladers force themselves to laugh.

The back wall of the room opens, and the teenagers leaning on it fall into a long, brightly lit hallway. The small group heads to the right for half an hour until they come to a lone door. The ten scared, tired, and confused survivors walk hesitantly through the door. They abruptly pause a couple of paces in, with looks of terror on their faces. Blood is splattered up the walls, and bodies are lying in heaps around the room.

I turn to Janson. "Dad, when did this happen?"

"Yesterday, it's still part of their trial. I couldn't tell you, sweetheart. I thought it would remind you of your mother and Sammy," he whispers, his eyes brimming with tears as he remembers what had happened to our family.

• • •

I was only five when the sun scorched the Earth. The devastation turned everyone's lives upside-down. My older brother Sammy was playing in a sandpit in the yard when the scorching rays burned everything to a crisp. He died instantly. My mother and I were in the frozen produce aisle at the supermarket, so we didn't feel the heat straight away, and my dad was watching Sammy from the living room, with the air conditioner cranked up to polar temperatures like always.

A year after we lost Sammy, my mother caught the Flare and slowly went insane. My father had to 'put her out of her misery,' as he said. I lost the two closest people to me, and their deaths still haunt me. My mother's screeches travelled in the air during the night, stealing the sleep that was protecting me from reality. The gunshot rang through our once comforting home, and her body slumped to the ground, blood oozing out of the bullet wound settled in her forehead.  It progressed across the floor, into the cracks of the kitchen tiles. My father sobbed over her unmoving state, his hands coated in the thick, red liquid.

My breath hitched in my throat, and I cried and cried for hours. The floor was soaked in the salty tears of father and daughter, and the blood of the loved and lost. There was no mending this broken family. We couldn't come back from this. My father vowed to spend the rest of his life redeeming himself. That's why he joined WCKD.

• • •

The Gladers have piled into the room to look at the various computer screens. "So, they were watching us. This whole time." Newt stares deep into the computer screens, trying to decode their deepest, darkest secrets. My heart almost flutters out of my chest when I hear his voice. That accent used to soothe me whenever I was stressed or upset. The accent that I loved instantly when I first met him. I watch him travel around the lab, looking at the different screens. He turns to one that shows pictures of each of the Gladers. He gazes at it until his picture pops up.

"A5, The Glue. What the bloody hell does that mean?"