Saving Newt

Chapter 53

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Thanks for reading.
This is nearly the end, only two more chapters to go, which makes me very, very unhappy 😥
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Enjoy,
Annabelle_the_reader
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Brianna stood just after the entrance to the wall, her heart pounding. She glanced at her wrist watch: twenty-three seconds. Twenty-three seconds too long, she needed to leave now before Newt or one of the Gladers saw her.

The Grievers sounded very far away, somehow further away than usual, as if they were waiting for her. As if they anticipated the inevitable. Shucking creators, they practically planned this, Brianna thought. Then she realised how much she hated them for doing this to her and Newt, knowing she would take her own life to save him. Yet they didn't even care, they were just another variable in their long, pitiless game. Perhaps she wasn't defying their ideas. Perhaps she was doing what they always expected her to. She didn't care whether the creators planned this or not, she was doing it anyway.

Brianna grimaced at the agony she would experience when she encountered the Grievers, knowing it would be beyond even the pain of the changing. But she wouldn't let that stop her.

Brianna took a step closer to the wall, allowing her mind to be freed from doubt. Her toes felt ahead blindly, mapping out the path of each footstep and caressing each stone slab as they encountered it. She drew in a deep breath and held it, waiting for the inevitable.

Then came the rumble from what felt like miles away to signal the end of everything she knew. Heads of working Gladers snapped to her and instantaneously, they began yelling. Calling for Brianna to step back, calling for Newt and Alby, or just shrieking in fear.

Brianna's feet clenched the floor like an anchor, ordering herself to stay out and not to move an inch. Her whole body urged her to run forward, through the closing walls of the gate to where Newt stood, held back by Minho, Thomas, Alby and Ben, all of whom knew it was too late to drag me back, the walls were nearly closed now.

'Come back, Brianna, please!' Newt called but she ignored him. She was too busy finalising her thoughts to concern herself with Newt, her one true love. Could she do it? Was she brave enough? She steeled herself and sucked in a dry breath, wishing this one act of true love was enough to Save Newt.

Brianna had never given much thought to how she would die. But surely it was a good way to die, in the place of someone else, in place of someone I loved. Noble, even. But nothing about watching the walls close was noble. In fact, it was terrifying.

'I love you, find a way out.' Brianna whispered. Sometimes Newt looked completely at Brianna, as if she was the point on which all of the universe revolved, as if she was the biggest mystery of life, or as if she was a flame and he couldn't not look even though he was scared.

Suddenly, an ear-piercing noise boomed throughout the Glade, the scratch of metal on metal. A small smile tugged at her lips as she watched Gally, giving her a small nod, disappear behind the walls. Tears climbed down her cheeks, but she didn't even feel them.

Brianna realised, as she was whisked away from her one true love, that he was the only thing she knew like the back of her hand. He was her one true love, the thing she loved more than anything else in the entire world. It was ridiculously splendid, beautiful and perfect. Brianna realised one stupid, irrational thing: she did truly, deeply and madly love Newt. It almost scared how his eyes drilled into her's, begging her to keep her promise.

Almost as soon as the walls clicked closed, the sound of Grievers defeated Brianna's ears. 

Whirrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Click-click-click

Her heart skipped a beat, her body refused to die the way one being stung would. No, she was too strong for that. Therefore, she raced towards the stone steps and pelted up the uneven slabs, stumbling and tripping as she went.

Once she had reached the top, her feet trembled as she ambled to the edge. There was around five hundred metres to the bottom, something she didn't want to encounter just yet.

Whirrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Click-click-click

Her eyes snapped behind her to see three Grievers rolling painfully behind her, the half machine and half animal monster crawled towards her. She edged closer to the edge, and then, when she realised there was no other escape.

Brianna jumped.