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With the gates closed it's a lot darker in here. I think about my first day in the clearing, my first encounter with Newt and how I was frightened when the gates closed with a loud roar and how Newt protected me. I loved him from the first moment. I just didn't know it yet. And he loved me too, I know that. I never doubted that Newt loved me. Not out of arrogance or anything. Newt just always makes me feel loved. “You take the lead, Minho,” I hear Alby say and I turn back to the others. Minho runs down the hallway to the next intersection - Alby follows him, then Robert and I. "I 'm really sorry for you. We'll find Newt. “Promise,” says Robert. I wasn't expecting it and I smile at him. “Thank you.” We start jogging and follow Minho through the labyrinth. I reach out and run next to Minho. “All we can do is walk through the labyrinth and hope we run into Newt,” Minho says rather hopelessly. But we still keep running and calling out Newt's name. That might also attract Griewer, but if we don't call, we might just run past Newt when he's just a corner away. It's getting darker and darker and soon I can only faintly see the outlines of the others. Luckily it's a full moon today, otherwise you probably wouldn't have seen anything. My mouth is already completely dry, but I keep calling out Newt's name. I'm still pretty exhausted from my little rescue operation earlier, so we can't run as fast as I would have liked because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to keep up. After an estimated two hours, something unexpected suddenly happened.Our calls receive an answer. "Here I am! Where are you? Y/n!” We all immediately stop in shock. “That’s him!” I scream. “NEW! NEWT, WHERE ARE YOU?” I yell as loud as I can. I sprint down the hallway and crash into Newt at the corner, who was about to run around the corner at the same moment. “Y/n!” Newt grabs my shoulders as we both fall to the ground from the momentum. “Newt!” I scream. I wrap my arms around him, Newt buries his hands in my arms and kisses me passionately and I'm sure it's the most beautiful kiss I've ever had. "You're fine!" Newt gasps as we break away from each other. We sit up and I sit close to Newt on his lap. I look him in the eyes, grin and say: "If you damn idiot hadn't run into the labyrinth, we would all be sitting happily in the clearing right now, but of course you had to play the hero again!" Newt grins and puts his forehead against mine . "I couldn't let you get torn apart by Griewers, could I?" "To be precise, I tore the Griewer apart," I say with a bit of pride in my voice. Newt seems slightly surprised. “Seriously?” I shrug. "I threw a knife at him, but he's not dead, I think." "Then let's hope he doesn't come to give you back your knife." Newt gives me a quick kiss, stands up and pulls me with him high. I wish we weren't in the labyrinth but in the clearing, where Newt and I could be at peace - where he would be all mine. But instead we have to be careful not to get impaled by oversized cyber spiders.
“That’s really incredibly touching, but we have to move on,” says Minho with his arms crossed. “Sure thing,” Newt says simply and lets go of me, albeit reluctantly. We're only halfway down the hallway when a Griewer comes around the corner and runs towards us. Minho curses loudly and we turn around and sprint back down the hallway as fast as we can. I'm pretty out of breath from the whole race now and can barely keep up with the others. Newt grabs my hand and pulls me with him. The Griewer is fast, but not as fast as us. After two more alleys I gasp: “I can’t take it anymore!” Newt calls out to the others and they fall back a little to us. “Okay, it’s only one. We should be able to deal with that,” says Alby and so we stop and stand ready with our weapons drawn. Newt has his pole again and I have my machete. As we wait for the Griewer to get closer, my fear and panic increases. “We can do this. Stay with me. “Don’t worry,” Newt murmurs. The Griewer has caught up with us and Robert, Minho and Alby are rushing towards him. I hold back for now because I'm still so exhausted while Newt supports me. The boys seem to be superior to Griewer, but then Robert suddenly screams and falls to the ground. “He was stung!” Alby shouts. Newt runs over to Robert and drags him out of harm's way. Minho then finishes off the Griewer by cutting off his head (or the thing where the head normally sits) with his machete. “Okay, we have to move on,” Minho calls. “I'll take him,” says Alby and grabs Robert under the arms while the rest of us walk back down the aisle – much slower now because Alby still has to drag Robert behind him.We walk through the labyrinth for a solid hour (Minho leads us) when we suddenly come to an intersection and I feel somehow threatened - more threatened than I normally am in the labyrinth. I look around and then curse when I see two Griewers emerging from both the alley behind us and the hallway that turns left. And at the same moment a Griewer appears in the hallway in front of us. “They have surrounded us!” I shout to the others, who have now noticed it themselves. "The critters are really smarter than I thought..." says Newt, but only I can hear him. “We are as good as dead! Five at once! We have no chance!” Minho shouts in frustration. “Maybe so!” I object. “We'll kill that one and then run off in that direction!” I point to the hallway in front of us, from which only one Griewer has emerged. I have little hope for this plan myself (after all, the other Griewers will probably have caught up with us long ago by the time we get past the other one), but there is no other option. We rush towards the Griewer and ignore the others who are running towards us. The Griewer rears up and I take the opportunity to stab him in the body with the machete while Alby rams his spear into his stomach. He leaned Robert against the wall. He's no longer conscious, but there's nothing else we can do. The Griewer swings his syringe at me, but I duck away just in time. With a powerful blow of his staff (which almost hit me), Alby cuts off the Griewer's arm with the syringe.Minho pounces on the Griewer and I leave it to him and Alby for now while I look around and am shocked to see that the other Griewers have already reached us. “One each!” Newt shouts at me and runs towards a Griewer. Alby and Minho have disabled the other Griewer and are now coming to take care of the others while I deal with my own Griewer. He tries to grab me with his grabber, but I dodge to the side and slam the machete into an unprotected spot on his side. The monster jerks back and makes a kind of screech, then swings its syringe at me. I hit her to the side with my arm and back away a little. Adrenaline rushes through my body and I take a deep breath before I throw myself at the Griewer again and hit everything in my reach with my machete. I wince when I feel a pain on my thigh, but it's nothing dramatic, so I don't let it stop me for long and continue to avoid the Griewer's metal arms. Next to me I hear a disgusting smack and something slippery hitting the floor. Then I suddenly find Minho at my side, who says: "Okay, all right, rookie?" He also stabs Griewer with his machete. "I am fine! We should definitely do that more often!” I answer, my voice dripping with irony. After a short while I kill the Griewer while Minho provides me with backup. I look around. Three Griewers lie dead on the ground. Newt and Alby each fight one of the other monsters.Minho jumps to Alby's side and I run to Newt to help him. “Watch out!” Newt shouts as I am almost hit by the grapple arm of the Griewer he is currently fighting. I do a very awkward forward roll to avoid the arm and then quickly jump back up and take a few steps back until I can get my bearings again. Then I jump next to Newt and try to avoid the metal arms and hit the Griewer with my machete at the same time. I'm not exactly a born fighter and it doesn't look particularly scary standing there flailing around with a machete. I fight at Newt's side against the Griewer for a while, but then I suddenly feel such tremendous pain that I scream and sink to the ground. I look down and can't possibly miss the hole in my shirt where the Griewer stabbed me. "Y/n!" I hear Newt shout, but I can already feel my consciousness slowly leaving me. Newt falls to the ground next to me. “Did he sting you?” he shouts and I can only nod. And then I see tears welling up in Newt's eyes. I never imagined Newt being capable of crying. I raise my hand and stroke his face. “Everything will be fine, the Grievians are almost all dead. We will take you to the clearing and give you the cure. Everything will be okay.” But somehow I wasn’t sure. I open my mouth and say with all my might, "I love you." More tears stream down Newt's cheeks. "Everything will be fine. I love you too. Everything will be fine,” he repeats again and again. I see movement out of the corner of my eye and look up.Newt takes a moment to follow my gaze, but it's too late. I see Griewer's blade whizzing down and then feel an astronomical pain in my chest. I hear Newt yelling my name, but there's nothing he can do. “I love you,” I hear Newt say again and then all my senses shut down. I expected my vision to go black because it's always like that in the movies and books and when you faint, yes. But it won't be black, it will be white.

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