-And I am the fire and I am the forest and I am a witness watching it-

"Chuck, come on!" I took hold of his hand, picking up our pace. Not caring where we went as long as it was far from here. Far from the thick sickly air. Grievers with humongous sky scraping legs, piercing the ground as they rampaged across our home. Uprooting it.


Faces I knew ran past us. Getting picked off left and right. Bodies getting dragged away still screaming for help. A few lay strewn on the ground, abandoned by the grievers. We kept moving, until I tripped over a log of some sort. Only it wasn't a log...


It was Zart.


Stomach impaled with an open wound. His eyes were open, glassy. Like a stiff doll. There was no way he could've survived that. He was gone.


"No." I whimpered, my nose was blocked up from the streaming tears. In the middle of wreckage and chaos I fell to my knees. Over his body. "No!" I cried, not caring about any stupid grievers. They had killed him. The boy that was so shy and kind. Who had kissed me. Just once. I started to sob, hugging his body.


"Y/n? We have to go." Chuck urged, hand on my shoulder. "We can't stay. He's gone." I only held Zart's body closer. My face pressed against his chest. It would not rise and fall. Blood spilled on to me. His blood. All over my pants. Blossoming in to different stains. "Y/n we gotta go!"


"So then go!" I snapped, still holding Zart. "Go without me! Get to the homestead and hide okay. I'll catch up later. Go!"Reluctantly Chuck nodded. Turning to run again.


I was being unreasonable. I was being emotional. I was being stubborn and stupid. But what am I supposed to do when a friend is reclined dead in my arms. Anything that was a part of him was gone. Leaving a shell of a corpse. And still I held him.


Footsteps pounded behind me. I didn't care to look who caused them. I had seen death for the first time. True death. Where you can see their soul leave their body like cigarette smoke. Billowing around. Swirling around you. You could almost feel their touch. His touch. So delicate, so hesitant, and boyishly nervous. I couldn't take it. I wouldn't be able to leave him.


So I closed my eyes. Joining him for bit. Trying to gather any part of him that stayed.


_________________________


The next thing I remember I was being carried over the shoulder of a mysterious figure. He was tall and very strong. He was Gally.


Gally moved quickly across the glade, darting away from those nasty grievers. I stayed quiet. If I tried talking to him it would only waste both of our energy. We needed to survive. He kept running until we were somewhere strange. Far too familiar, but strange. The box?
A handful of boys followed us, one of them swinging the grated door open.


"Go go go go!" Gally ordered, causing boys to jump right in. In seconds we were right there with him. He placed me in a corner on the floor just as the last boy made it in. A red headed boy.


"Victor?" I called out, taking a double take. He looked so different when he was crying. He only answered me with sobs. Everyone was in a panic. If the grievers found us we'd be done. Only the boys didn't know how to soothe him.


"Shut the fuck up!" One attempted, whisper shouting. It only made it worse. Pity in my heart, I tugged him down to me. Covering his mouth with my hand. Muffling his whimpers.


"Breathe." I muttered in his ear, patting his shoulder with my other hand. "Just breathe and it'll all be over. It's gonna be okay alright. See, I'm here. Shhhh." Shushing him softly, his noise died down. Wiping his tears away with my thumb, he was finally subdued.


"I saw him." Victor whispered. "I saw Paul and I ran. I just ran." He didn't need to say anything else. Gathering him up in my arms I hugged him tightly. My chin on his shoulder. We stayed like that, until we heard rattling. Then shouting.


"Hey let me in!" Looking up, I saw who it was. Wincing when he moved from his injury. His cut leg. "Quick! They're coming!" Boys stayed still, pressed against the box's walls like sardines. Unmoving. "Come on!" He shouted, tugging on the grate. "Please!" Paul slumped over, bowing his head down. Begging for mercy in soft whimpers. "Please Victor. Please Gally. Please y/n?" We met eyes.


Funny. I'd never seen someone so far gone. So mental. So helpless. I just stared at him, tilting my head. Getting a good look in. The boys looked for my approval.


"Do it. Open the door." My voice was raspy from tears. Emotionally exhausted. "Let him in."


"Oh God. Oh thank you. Thank you." Paul wept much to the disgust of the other boys. He didn't deserve saving. He had tried to kill me multiple times. Made my life a living hell. But I couldn't let him die.


Not like that.


The gate was lifted up to allow Paul to slide in. Only he never did. Never got the chance.


"Holy fuck." I breathed.


A swarm of grievers surrounded the boy at that moment. Like a horde of starving animals. They each grabbed a limb in their sharp unforgiving claws. Fighting over him.


I can still remember the way he screamed. Writhing with bulging eyes. Trying to twist out of the grievers web. Almost unable to believe what was happening to himself. How the grievers carried him away, retreating to the darkness.


"Paul!" Victor screamed, jumping to his feet. He tried to open the grate but it was being held down by the others. "No, Paul!" The boys didn't move a muscle. If we opened it the grievers would have their way with us. Just like what they did with Paul.


My stomach twisted at the sight of Victor. How his face was the picturesque definition of devastation. How he crumbled on to the floor once he realized.


He was too late.


Head pounding. Things started to go fuzzy again. What was going on? We were just kids. Why would anyone do this to us. We were kids.


"Oh my God I think I'm gonna be sick." I mumbled. The box spun around in my vision, tilting. I slid down the wall to the floor, crumpling myself. Gally kneeled, taking hold of me. Cradling my head. "I don't wanna pass out." It was so hard to speak. My tongue felt so thick in my mouth.


"You're not gonna pass out." He looked down at me. Looking just like he did when he saved me after running into that tree so many ions ago. Like an angel. "You're gonna stay here with me. Just stay here with me."


He looked so pretty in the torch's light.
__________________________


"Get her up." Someone said gruffly. Whoever the person ordered complied. Picking me up by my arms. Still groggy from everything going black I wavered a little bit. Taking a while to find my footing. My eyes refocused, finding that someone was Gally.


His demeanor had done a complete one eighty while I had fell unconscious. Completely quiet with tight lips and furrowed brows. Stoically seething.


"Gally?" I reached out to him but he flinched. Burned by my touch. Instead he turned from me, climbing out of the box.


"Let's go." He called over his shoulder, making it to the top. We all obliged. Crawling out one by one. Helping the person behind them. My eyes stung from the air's acrid smoke. Lungs tickled by it, making me cough. The glade was on fire. Flames licking everything they could get their hands on. I always thought I'd go to hell but now I don't think I need to.


I was already in it.


"Gally!" I shouted, scrambling to catch up with his quick strides. He was going to do something stupid. Very very stupid. "Gally please. Wait up!"


"It's his fault." He said under his breath. "It's all his fucking fault."


Thomas and his troop had just stumbled out of a now partially corroded homestead. A griever had broken through a window. Shattered glass splintered across the glade. A furious Gally was stomping right for them.


"Gally!" I called out, trying to make my legs move faster to no avail. He ignored me. Getting right in Thomas's face he landed a right hook on him that sent him flying backwards.


"This is all you Thomas! Look around!" Gally spat, still ready to charge him.


"What the fuck?!" My hand covered my own mouth in what I had just witnessed. Boys came left and right to keep Gally back.


"Back up Gally it's not Thomas's fault!" Minho hollered, shoving Gally away.


"You heard what Alby said! He's one of them!" Gally argued, pushing back. I faltered over to Thomas's side hearing groans emit from him.


"One of who?"


"He's one of them and they sent him here to destroy everything and now he has!" Gally tried weaving through the wall of people to reach Thomas. He had gone fucking feral. "Look around Thomas! Look around! This is your fault!"


Gladers started getting involved to stop the angry boy. Thomas got up, looking blankly at him.


"Calm down!"


"Back up!"


"Gally calm down!"


"Get off me!" Gally roared. I stood next to Thomas, watching him grab an object from Chuck's hand that I hadn't seen before. A huge injection needle with broken wires trailing out of the end of it. "They sent him here and now he's destroyed everything we've built!" Now he caught sight of me next to Thomas. Making the situation uglier. "You stay away from her! I told you to stay away from her!"


Slowly Thomas turned the object over in his hand, spinning it toward himself. Oh shit. No please don't do anything impulsive.


"Maybe he's right." He croaked, looking over at me.


"Thomas, what the fuck do you think you're doing?" I slipped my hand on the object, trying to pull it away from him.


"Thomas?" Teresa spoke up from behind us. He held fast on it, eyes glazed over.


"I need to remember Teresa." Spilled out of his lips. In one quick jab he took the needle, stabbing it into his thigh.


"Thomas no!" I cried out, trying to catch him as he fell. He was too heavy and he disappeared from my grasp.


"Chuck get the other syringe!" Teresa instructed, finding her way to Thomas's side. As much as I wanted to help I just couldn't anymore. Every particle of me was used up. Drained. Teresa was taking care of Thomas so I just sort of left.


Trudging off to the depths of the deadheads. Taking my wounds and pains to an old withered tree. The same one that had Gally and I's names tattooed in it. Crouching down to the words level I pressed my forehead against them. Wrapping my arms around the tree. In all death and destruction closing my eyes to sleep like a baby. Letting my dreams take me somewhere cleaner.


Pure.

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