Subject B3 (newt x reader)

Chapter 2

"Hey, where's Aris?" Maria asks the group as we walk along the corridor back to our dorm. "We haven't seen him since we arrived."

Where was Aris? Once we'd escaped the maze Aris had been taken on a different helicopter to us to get to where we were now, and none of us had seen him since we arrived in the middle of the night yesterday.

"He'll show up soon enough." Gzi sighs, flopping down onto her bed. "Don't give it too much thought, Maz- you'll drive yourself insane."

"Gzi's right." I say softly, climbing up onto Maria's bed to join her. She looks at me with worried eyes, her finger in her mouth again.

If she keeps on chewing then she won't have any nails left soon.

"Aris will be back soon." Ava says, climbing onto the top bed of her bunk which she shares with Renee, "I'm sure he's somewhere in this place."

"For now I say we get some sleep." Sonya suggests, "let's take advantage of proper beds while we have them, because who knows- maybe we'll be stripped away from this place any moment."

Her comment makes Maria whimper slightly, so I reach over and rub her back gently, trying to comfort her.

"It'll be alright, Maz." I whisper, " I'm here with you, and I'm not leaving."

The brunette girl looks at me and smiles. "Thank you, Y/N. Goodnight."

"Night. Sleep well." I reply, taking hold of the top of the ladder and climbing back down to the floor. Maria gets under the covers of her bed and pulls them right up to her chin, and even though the main light of the room is still on, she falls asleep in seconds.

"Poor Maz." Harriet sighs as I go over to join her by the basin in our room, "she's not cut out for this."

"And what exactly is this?" I ask, turning on the hot water. I cup my hands together and hold it under the gushing water, trying to collect as much as I can before splashing it on my face.

"Being stripped away from the Coremeum, having to escape through the maze against the Grievers- which was traumatising enough for everyone- watching some of her closest friends get brutally murdered by those monsters, and ending up wherever the hell we are now." She gestures to the room. "Y/N, we have no idea who these people are, or why they rescued us."

"Yeah, something's off about this whole thing." I say, scrubbing my hands under the tap. At my comment, Harriet pauses washing her own hands and turns towards me.

"You agree?" She says in shock.

"Of course I agree. I'm not fucking stupid." I say to the girl. "But I have to pretend like everything's fine, for Maz's sake. The last thing she needs is to find out that I think this whole situation is just another trial. Remember what that woman said on the video, right before she shot herself? Phase 2 was only beginning. What if this is Phase 2 right now? What if this is all some sort of test? And where the hell is Aris?"

"Oi, are you to done chit-chatting over there?" Renee shouts from her bed, causing both of us to startle slightly.

"Oh, yeah. Sorry." I mumble, turning off the tap. I shoot Harriet a quick glance before walking back to my own bed, just as Ava switches off the main light. The room instantly cascaded in darkness, the only light coming from the corridor outside our room, which seeps through the small cracks in the door.

*****
After about an hour I can tell everyone in our room is asleep simply from the sound of their breathing. But tonight, I've accepted that sleep and I are strangers. So I lie in my bed, my fingers interlaced resting on my chest, and let my mind wonder.

"Are we ready?" Gzi says sternly, her grip on the spear tightening. Trying to swallow down the rising bile, I nod simply. The rest of the girls all nod in unison, except from Maria. She stands next to me, shaking like a leaf. Tears stream down her face, and her eyes are red and puffy.
"Stay close to me." I whisper, gripping the girl's arm. She simply nods, too petrified to even utter a word.
"Alright, good luck girls." Gzi says. "See you on the other side. CHARGE!"

My thoughts are interrupted by a clang, coming from under my bed, followed by muttered curse words.

"Y/N?" The voice whispers. My breath hitches in my throat at the familiar voice.

Aris.

I lean down over my bed and come face-to-face with the boy. He's lying flat on his stomach, his head peaking out of the vent under my bed. The vent door is lying a couple inches away from him. That was the clanging noise.

My body instantly fills with relief as I break into a smile. "Aris? You're alive!"

"Of course I'm alive." He mutters. "Now, come on. I need to show you something."

Thanks for the I missed you too, Y/N.

I watch as the boy spins around in the vent and starts crawling away from me, not waiting to see if I follow him.

I hesitate if I should go after him for a moment.
Just go, Y/N. It's not like you'll be getting to sleep anytime soon. And it's obviously something really important he wants to show me, considering he crawled through a vent to get to my room.

Sighing, I swing my legs down off the bed and crawl on my hands and knees into the vent after the boy.

"Aris, wait up!" I whisper loudly as he turns the corner. The metal of the vent is cold and slightly sticky against my bare skin, and the vent rattles with every movement I make.

"Aris can you just wait a second?" I hiss again, but the boy ignores me and continues to move along the vents. I roll my eyes and pick up my pace slightly, trying to be as quiet as possible as I crawl along. The last thing I need is for someone to catch us.

Finally, I turn a corner and see Aris crouching down at the end of the vent tunnel, looking down through an opening with his brows furrowed.

"Ok, what did you want to show me?" I ask impatiently, crawling over to join him.

"Just watch." The boy says. I shift my glance to look through the vent opening beneath me.

As if on cue, a woman walks along the floor beneath us, stopping right under the opening. My heart speeds up for a moment, thinking that she's heard us, but instead she keeps on walking down the hallway, the clicking of her heels echoing throughout the facility.

Only seconds later, a man follows behind her, pushing along a stretcher covered in a white sheet. My breathing hitches when I notice the faint outline of a body under the cloth.

I shift my sitting position so I can get a better look, I watch as the woman pushes a card up against a panel against the wall, and stands back while the door in front her hisses open. She beckons the man to follow her, and the two of them go through the doorway, closing it behind them.

After they've disappeared, I shift my eyes to Aris. "What the fuck was that?"

"They bring whatever the hell is under those sheets to this room. I watched them take the others earlier, but I had to come get you before they took in the rest."

"Others? Rest? Are you saying that my eyes weren't tricking me and they're actually bodies under those sheets?" I say. And just as I finish my sentence, the realisation hits me. "Wait, how many people came up tonight?"

"7." Aris replies.

7 bodies. That man called out 7 names today in the cafeteria tonight. What if that means that those teenagers don't actually leave this place?