Wildfire ~ Newt

1.20

If fairytales were true, then this would be the perfect retelling as the sleeping beauty lay limp on the bed in the medhut.

For five weeks, four days and sixteen hours, Vera had been like this, and her absence had been felt like a knife.

After the operation, the 6 boys exhausted, shaken and bloody had collapsed, their breathing shallow and ragged. Vera had passed out half way through, which Newt had supposed was a good thing, as she didn't have to endure the pain anymore; but ever since then, she had not woken up.

Newt had stayed with her though. Gripped onto her hand like if he let go she would vanish from existence. He watched for days on end, how her chest rose and fell, empty and shallow, like life was slowly slipping away from her.

Her skin was pale, as white as snow, and her cheeks were hollow and sharp, lined from above with black circles. 

She looked like a ghost, yet, despite the hauntings that filled her body, a strange sort of beauty radiated off her. 

One of courage, and of the girl he knew, still in there, fighting to come back.

Newt stayed with her every second of every day, only falling asleep when one of the others managed to convince him too, promising to take watch and wake him the second she stirs. 

In some ways, Newt was dying too. As if a part of him had been ripped away the second he saw her gutted stomach.

The memories still haunted him. Her screams. Her terrible screams. 

They no doubted haunted the others too, and Newt was sure that night would not be one the glader's forgot any time soon.

He should of been there. With her in the maze. Instead she was gutted like some animal, and George...was left to die. 

They had held a funeral for the boy. The jokester who'd always created laughter in the glade. It now seemed awfully quiet without his presence, without both of their presence. As if a shadow had been cast upon them. 

Ben had taken it the worst. Mourning deeply for the loss of his friend. Newt might be in bad form, but at least Vera still had a heart beat in her chest.

If she didn't wake, they guess they'll never know what happened to the brown haired trickster, what became of him in his last moments. 

Everything was so messed up. 

Ben and Minho hadn't entered the maze until at least a week had passed since that fateful day. Just to be sure that whatever got the other two runners was long gone. 

They lost valuable time, but not only that, it seemed as if the whole glade itself had been slowed. The boys lacked joy and motivation, the horrors of Vera's screams still chilling them as they worked. The absence of her dancing by the fire every night, the lack of her voice as she sang to them, somehow brought with it a dire gloom.

Even the murals painted on the wall seemed colourless and dead.

Newt remembered when she painted them. Always going on about the lack of art and music, so she made her own paint, and decorated the walls in all kinds of colour. It certainly had livened the place up a bit, yet now, the sinister bleakness had returned. 

Newt couldn't give up though. Wouldn't give up on the girl sleeping in front of him. As long as her heart still beated in her chest, it meant she was still fighting. 

So, so would he.

The days went by since she entered the void of her own mind, resulting in Newt and any of the other lads who watched her to spoon feed her some of Fry's soup. It was a struggle, and she had certainly become thinner, almost like a skeleton. 

But each one of them forced it down her throat, determined to get her through this.

So now they just waited. 

***

"Newt you should get some rest" a croaky voice sounded from behind him, and in walked a solemn looking Minho. His hair was a mess, his eyes dark and puffy, exhausted from not only running the maze everyday, but from the loss of his friends.

He didn't answer and just continued staring at Vera, watching her slightly parted lips inhale and exhale.

"Newt...please...Vera's....Vera's gone", he choked, making sudden anger flare in his veins.

"SHE'S NOT GONE!" he suddenly shouted, tears threatening to spill from his eyes, as Minho's breath became hitched.

"It's almost been 6 weeks, we can't keep feeding her Fry's soups...they're just not enough", he explained, his voice wobbling from his words.

"Then we'll make them enough", Newt snapped, his eyes still fixated on her, watching her every breath. The way her chest rose, making her golden hair, glint in the sunlight.

It was silent for several seconds, until Minho spoke up once again, his voice ever raspier then before.

"Please", he begged, not wanting to loose another friend to grief. 

Newt's lip quivered at the desperateness in Minho's voice, but held firm, "I...won't...leave...her", he trembled, his own legs shaking as he fought back the tears.

The Keeper of the Runners sighed, not one of annoyance, but one of sheer hopelessness, and thus left the medhut, his footsteps echoing in Newt's ear as he left.

It was true what Minho said; the soup wasn't enough. They'd been trying their best to feed her, but it simply didn't provide another nutrients, nor was enough to stop the inevitable frailness of her body. 

To say Vera looked like a skeleton was putting it lightly.

As his lip quivered, Newt reached out to stroke a strand of her golden hair from her pale face, beautiful even in this death like state.

"Did I ever tell you of this girl in my dreams?", he began, his fingers trembling as he tried to get the words out.

"She was a beautiful girl, hair like the sun, and eyes of the deepest emerald...but the part of her that was more vivid and beguiling than anything else...was her smile. Every night...after when I broke my leg, leading up to your arrival she would come to me...laughing and dancing...she promised me that everything was going to be all right, and that she would follow me to the end of the world and back" he throat got caught on the last word, so he took a deep breath to steady himself, before beginning again.

"I never knew who she was, but then you came along and I....I thought there was something familiar about you...but now I realise that you were with me this whole time. Vera...I know I knew you before all this, you provided me with light when I was the most low", he continued, his eyes red and puffy, as tears trickled down his cheek.

"When I was lying there tangled up in the ivy, thinking this was it; that I was gonna die here alone, a voice sounded in my head. Your voice. Telling me that I had to keep fighting; I had to find the strength within me to keep going...so I did, and then...and then Minho showed up...and I knew...knew everything was gonna be fine", he quivered, a tear falling onto her pale skin.

"You saved me Vee", he sobbed, that nickname for her suddenly popping into his head. "You saved me, and now I will save you...so please don't give up...you have to keep fighting...please", he choked on his tears, cradling his head in his lap as he shook. 

He did not know then, that her eyes, had at last...opened.