The Garden of Heathen

BYLH

TW* mentions blood and suicide

Aussie stared at the paper as voices swirled around her. If she hadn't had a firm grip on Gertie's hand and Gally's thick arm she felt as though she might have floated through the ceiling or fallen through the floor. While the others were focused on the more foreboding elements of the note, she kept staring at two words.

White Rabbit.

It was as if those two simple words had walked into her mind with a baseball bat and rung her bell. Something was rattling around in there now that hadn't been before.

"Aussie?"

At the sound of her name her eyes flicked up and she looked around, trying to tell who spoke to her.

"Huh?" She asked, releasing her bottom lip she didn't realize she'd been biting.

"Well? What do you think?" Georgia asked.

"I - um, I don't know," she said softly.

Her eyes landed on White Rabbit again and she felt like she was shoulder deep, rooting around the bottom of a box for some lost item.

"Well, yeah, none of us know anything," Georgia scoffed. "But there has to be something here that makes sense, right?"

"I keep stock of all the medical supplies and I have no idea what 'grief serum' is," Gertie repeated herself in case Aussie had missed it earlier. She seemed really zoned out.

"I'm guessing the things in the maze would be things that would sting you, so that kind of holds out hope, doesn't it?" Joan asked. "They might not kill you. You might get the chance to get back here and get an antidote."

"Mmm yeah, lovely! I'll be the first to go walking in the maze tomorrow," was Georgia's response to that.

"Except we don't have this grief serum," Gertie reminded them.

The three of them carried on about the monsters and stings and serums but Aussie and Gally stayed quiet, both of them looking at two different things on the paper until Aussie rested her head against his arm. There was a small splat noise. A red dot appearing on the table next to the paper. A drop of blood.

An icy wave rippled through Aussie as unwanted memories flooded in. The wet, heavy scent of iron in the air. She looked just past the edge of the table where she knew she didn't want to look. Blood on the floor, her shoe squelching the congealed surface of it as she took a step back.

"Aussie, your lip is bleeding," Gertie said but Aussie was already pulling away from them, a wild look in her eyes.

"The blood," Aussie said in a terrified whisper.

All she saw was the worst moment of her life played out in front of her again. The pool of thick blood on the floor, congealed like gravy left out too long. She had to step in it to reach Mary as she lay pale and lifeless on the floor. With that much blood Aussie should have known better, known that she was already gone, but she still had to try and save her. She stepped into the blood, falling to her knees in it beside her friend as she checked for a pulse that had long since stopped.

The blood lasted for days. It got everywhere when her and Thena brought Mary out of the basement all by themselves to give her a proper burial. Then they had to clean it all up, and the more they tried to clean it the more it seemed to get everywhere. Stains stayed and had to be painted over, clothes had to be burned. It was the Maze's chilling reminder that not even in death could you escape.

Gally reached for the still reeling Aussie, softly saying her name, but she wrenched her hand away and fled up the stairs. At first he was frozen, shocked that she had recoiled from his touch like that, but quickly choked down the ache in his chest as he went to follow her.

"Gally wait!" Gertie said as she stood in his way, not minding that he could run her over without breaking his stride. "It's probably about Mary and Aussie told us she'd rather be left alone when it comes to Mary."

He didn't even waste his time telling her how dumb that was, that there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell he'd let her be alone with that, he just brushed right past her and started taking the stairs three at a time.

Once he reached the top he heard running water and made a sharp turn for the bathroom where he found Aussie in the shower, fully clothed, scrubbing at herself while crying.

"Aussie. Aussie, look at me," he tried to coax her.

"I have to get the blood off!" She cried as her hands rubbed her arms, neck and face as if she were covered head to toe in it.

"Ok! Ok," Gally played along. "I want to help you, show me where it is."

"It's-!" Aussie looked down at herself, checking her hands, arms, body and legs. "It- it was there. I swear it was there."

"It's alright," Gally said as he reached over and turned off the faucet.

When he straightened up he was met with her sad, scared, thundercloud blue eyes searching his as she stood there dripping wet, her clothes clinging to her thin body.

"Did I go crazy?" She asked him.

He grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her.

"No," he answered as he dried her face. "You reacted sanely to the insane world we live in."

Her gaze was fixed on him with such intensity he couldn't look directly at her because if he did he might do something crazy like-

Like what? Pull her closer with that towel and kiss her? He was actually having thoughts of kissing her now?

He looked down and tried to dislodge that thought before he said anything else to her.

"Look," he cleared his throat. "You've still got a concussion, you should go rest."

He used the towel to brush a tear from her cheek.

"I think you're right," she said with a heavy exhale. "Will you stay with me though? I don't want to be alone."

"Of course," he agreed quickly and four letters flashed across his mind.

BYLH