Into The WICKED Maze | A Maze Runner Story (English Version)

8. A memory

After minutes of just sitting there, I got up and stood just infront of the couch with the unconscious boy. Tears were still running down my cheeks as I put my hands in the back pockets of my slightly more than knee-length trousers and paused. There was something in my left trouser pocket.
A note.
My heart stopped briefly as I pulled the note out of my pocket and hurried to the small window through which a little light was still falling. I opened it and indeed - it was a message.
One word stood there.
Remember.
Nothing more.
I was completely overwhelmed. What did it mean? Who had given me this note? Was there someone on our side? On my side?
My heart was pounding as I read the words over and over again. Someone wanted me to remember my past. But who? A friend?
I just stood there for minutes, unable to move. Finally I put the paper back in my pocket and decided not to tell anyone about it for now, not even Gally. First I had to figure out for myself what it meant and I didn't want any of the gladers to think I was someone who had anything to do with the creators. I knew that I could not afford to be suspicious in here.
With a last glance at Stan's silhouette, still motionless, I quietly left the hut again and made my way to the campfire. The boys had started a kind of wrestling match, and those who were not fighting were standing in a circle around the fighters. It was always one against one and Gally seemed to be quite good at it, because he always managed to push his opponent out of the circle and into the group.
The boys cheered, clapped and laughed and the mood was exuberant. As I didn't feel like being frolicsome at the moment, I sat down on the other side of the fire and watched dreamily as Gally fought Minho who stopped him quite well until he stumbled and fell backwards into the boys' group just like his predecessors.
I didn't notice it at first, but suddenly I had the feeling I was being watched. I looked around in confusion and was almost sure I was imagining it, but then I saw Newt sitting on a trunk a little away from me and from the others, staring at me boldly. Surprised, I raised one eyebrow and stared back, completely overwhelmed by the feeling his gaze caused in me.
It took me a little while to catch myself before I stood up without really thinking and walked towards him. He looked at me in surprise as I stopped in front of him and asked: "May I sit with you?"
When he just nodded, I sat down beside his legs and leaned against the trunk. At first we were silent, but then he began to speak. And he said what I had expected.
"This thing you are trying to do is completely crazy. If no Griever gets you, then something else bad will happen to you. I know what I'm talking about."
I didn't look up, I just kept looking towards the fire. If I didn't look at him, he couldn't confuse me that much with his look.
"Don't you want to get out of here? I can understand that what happened to you in the maze was horrible and you don't wish it on anyone, but who says that Minho and I will have to go through the same thing? We're not alone and we can take care of each other.
"How do you know...?" he started, but I interrupted him.
"Alby..."
"Of course. Did he just tell you that?"
"I asked him. I wanted to know what was the matter with you when you left the shack so soon. But I still don't understand why you're so against it. I mean, yes, I understand your thinking, but this is about Minho and me and we're two people who just arrived here this morning. What do you care what happens to us?"
"We're all looking out for each other here. Didn't Nick tell you?"
No, he didn't, but Gally had told me when I watched him building the hut. But I didn't tell Newt that.
"Still. You don't have any ties to us. Better we go in there now and try our luck, than if someone else you've known for a longer time does it, right?"
He didn't answer for a long time and I wondered if he had even listened to me. At some point I dared to look up at him and was immediately completely hypnotized by his eyes, because he just looked at me without saying anything.
So we sat there for a while and looked at each other without a word. The flames of the fire flickered in his eyes and he did something to me that I did not understand. I was completely captivated by the brown of his eyes and a warm feeling made its way through me, like a memory.
Then suddenly Newt whispered, although there was no one there to hear us anyway. "I am not afraid for you two. I'm afraid for you."
I couldn't answer anything and wouldn't have known what to say. I was much too overwhelmed by his words and the look he gave me.
He seemed to misinterpret my silence, averted his gaze and I could have sworn his cheeks were a little red, but the light of the fire made it difficult to tell.
"I'm sorry. I don't know what got into me, I just said what I thought. I shouldn't have done that." He got up and wanted to leave.
For a second I was frozen, but then I jumped up and went after him.
"Newt, wait!" I grabbed his arm and I held him.
He turned to me and again my breath stopped as our eyes met. I quickly closed my eyes to think clearly before looking at him again.
"I... I think I know what you mean. When I came out of the box, this morning, I saw you and you looked at me and I was sure I knew you. I don't know anything from my past and I probably wouldn't have remembered Gally either if he hadn't brought back those memories, but I remembered you. Your eyes... It's like I've seen them before, like I've looked into them a thousand times. And I don't know what that means or if I'm just getting crazy here, but something is there and you can't tell me that you don't feel that we knew each other. That's not possible, I'm not just imagining it..."
Tears were streaming down my cheeks and I tried to wipe them away quickly. Now I was standing here, in front of this boy I wasn't supposed to know after all, in a place I had been sent to without memories. I was so overwhelmed with it that I could not think clearly and now I was sobbing uncontrollably.
Suddenly I felt Newt's arms around me and buried my face in his chest while I clawed into his shirt.
His smell. His warmth.
If I had thought I was at home with Gally before, I had not known what it felt like with Newt.
As I inhaled his smell, I suddenly saw images in my mind's eye that had not been there before.
I saw an unconscious Newt on a couch, saw him sitting on a bed on the other side of a small room, saw him holding my hands and our lips touching for the first time. An explosion of feelings went up inside me when I saw us on a roof when the sun was just rising and then again on this roof, only much closer. I felt such a great sadness that could only come from saying goodbye that the feeling almost tore me away from my feet.
I gasped for breath and abruptly detached myself from him. We stood facing each other with big eyes staring at each other as I wondered if he had just seen the same thing as I had.
He answered me as he grabbed my hands slightly trembling and took them into his. Without taking his eyes off my mine, he took a step towards me so that we were now very close again and bent down a few centimetres towards me.
Completely frozen, I looked at him as he said something that finally threw me off track.
"I love you." That was a statement. And suddenly I knew what I had to answer.
"And I love you."
It was too much for me. Again I sobbed and hugged him. "I missed you so much. And I didn't know it anymore."
The tears were running down my cheeks uncontrollably now and I was sure his shirt was about to get really wet.
"Hey, I'm here. Now I'm not going anywhere."
He stroked my back and every touch was tingling on my skin. Carefully he put one hand under my chin and lifted my head so that I had to look him in the eyes again. Very slowly and without averting his gaze he bent down to me and kissed me. I closed my eyes and the thousand butterflies that were living in my stomach began to fly around.
It was like our first kiss, even though I knew now that there had been so many before.