The Other Side - A Newt Fanfiction

Chapter Fourteen: They're Worth the Impossible

{WARNING: The following chapter contains some intense and morbid content. Proceed with caution.}

As the Berg disappears into the night, I feel as if it grows harder to breathe, almost as if a massive boulder is on my chest, crushing my lungs.
Wheezing, I fall to my knees, staring ahead into the night sky, completely hopeless.
Newt, turning back at me when he hears my body fall, gasps. "(y/n)?" He whispers, crouching beside me.
"They have them..." I struggle to get out before forcing myself to take a deep breath. "They have Sonya and Aris." Shifting my eyes to Newt, it takes everything in my power to stay calm. "We have to save them... I have to save them- I need to go after the Berg-" I whisper frantically, quickly getting to my feet, legs wobbling.
"(y/n), the Berg is gone." Newt mumbles, standing and limping behind me as I stumble down the hill of sand.
Chest heaving with heavy breaths, I begin to run ahead, as if I can catch up to the Berg if I just run as fast as I can, although that is clearly impossible. "I don't care. I have to go after them."
He quickly follows after. "Let's be rational about this; we can't do a bloody thing about WICKED from down here on the ground-"
"They've taken more of my shucking friends away, Newt!" I suddenly shout, turning around to face the blonde boy as I point up at the sky in the direction the Berg had left in, trembling with abundant anger. "They took Sonya and Aris!"
Staring at me with anxious eyes, Newt attempts to shush me softly, striding to me and gently grasping my arm. "I know; they've got Minho, too. I-"
"Exactly! They took Minho!" I shout, throwing my hands in the air. "How are you so calm about this?!"
"(y/n), if you would just-"
"No! No, you don't understand!" I snap, my eyes beginning to water. "I've failed to protect Sonya before, and I promised Aris that we'd be okay! I promised, Newt, but they took them! I didn't save them!"
Brows drawn together and jaw tightly clenched, Newt stares at me, struggling to conjure up a proper response. Unable to reply verbally, he suddenly pulls me into his arms.
I fight his comfort, attempting to shove him off, unintentionally taking out my frustration on him, but I fail to break away as he holds me tighter in response.
"I know. I know, you did..." He whispers, keeping his arms wrapped around me as we sink to our knees in the sand.
Finally caving in, I begin to cry, no longer fighting his consolation. Shaking with anxiety and overwhelming sorrow and adrenaline and utter rage, I return the embrace, squeezing my eyes shut.
Thomas, slowly walking down the hill and stopping where the sand levels out, continues to stare up at the sky, silent. Broken.
Head hanging in complete sorrow, Frypan quietly walks behind Thomas, resting a hand on his shoulder as he presses his lips tightly together, his eyes beginning to glisten with tears.
Brenda slowly walks down the slope of the mountain, gun strapped to her back and Jorge following behind, somberly making their way to our group.
I hold onto Newt tightly as I continue to wail over my friends into his shoulder, grasping tightly onto the back of his coat with my hands.
As I slowly lift my head just enough to expose my eyes, I spot Vince walking through the destroyed camp, not saying a word. Although he stands tall, his facial expression reveals his unbearable emotional pain.
Jorge sighs softly, patting Thomas's back as he approaches the boy.
However, Thomas does not even budge in response.
I pull away from Newt, sniffling repetitively as I wipe my eyes with my sleeves, but that doesn't stop the tears.
Frowning, Newt gently brushes away some tears from my face with his thumb, his expression concerned but his eyes revealing his own deep internal ache.
Harriet, clearly crushed by our friends getting snatched by WICKED, purses her lips tightly together, maintaining a stern expression as she stomps out a small pile of debris that is illuminated with flames, taking out her pain on the wreckage.
Licking my lips as my salty tears roll onto them, I look down at my hands, balling them into fists so tightly that my fingernails dig into the skin of my palms, my fists visibly trembling as several emotions swell up inside of me.
Newt's hands gently wrap around my fists, causing me to lift my eyes to him as he shakes his head, making me ease up just enough to not end up hurting myself with my overwhelming emotions.
The entire campground is weighed down with a heavy silence, but the reek of death does not yet taint the dry breeze; however, the smoke clouds begin to enter our broken bodies, igniting our throats with an invisible fire that shrivels up our lungs as they overwork in attempt to remain steady and rhythmical through the horrific situation. The flames from the burning tents and supplies forces our mourning, slumped shadows to dance along the sand against their will, juxtaposing the grieving atmosphere of the destroyed grounds.
"Alright," Vince's voice breaks the dead silence as he stands from atop of one of the surviving boxes of supplies. "We've got a few tents still standing, and most of our vehicles are alright, so I suggest that most of you try to get some rest before we begin rummaging through the debris. If you cannot possibly sleep at this hour, then you will help me set out these fires and save what we can." He says in an authoritative voice. "We will continue to do as planned: we leave at dawn." With that, he steps down from the box to indicate that his announcement has come to a close, quietly walking along the road to continue passing his orders along.
"Continue to do as planned?" I mumble, wiping my eyes and staring at the man as anger rises within me again. "Are you crazy?!" I snap, but Vince ignores me.
As I turn to face the man, Newt quickly pulls me back by the waist to keep me from scrambling to my feet and charging after Vince.
"No- No, stop-" I protest, trying to pry his arms off. "I need to talk to Vince. He can't make us move on without the others." Managing to shove Newt's arms off of me, I hop to my feet, quickly stomping through the dirt. "Sonya's been with the Right Arm for days now!" I call after Vince, glaring at him. "You can't just abandon one of your own!"
"(y/n)," Newt says in an urgent tone, rushing to me and grasping my arms from behind to hold me back. "We shouldn't cause further quarreling..."
Breathing heavily through my nose, I step back, giving up on the fight as I purse my lips together, eyes beginning to water again as I curse under my breath through clenched teeth.
Harriet, biting her lip, makes her way to Newt and I. "We really should sleep..."
I stare ahead, not responding to her, an unreadable expression on my face.
Sighing, Newt steps forward and brushes the hair out of my face. "She's right, (y/n)." He says softly.
However, I don't reply, clenching my jaw.
Frowning, Newt huffs a heavy sigh. "Where are you two going to rest?" He asks Harriet before suddenly scooping me up into his arms.
"Wait, what are you doing?" I ask quickly before protesting, "Newt, put me down. Your leg-"
"No more bloody arguing with me." He mutters flatly, shifting his brown eyes to mine as he adjusts his hold on me with ease. "Alright?"
"But-"
"No."
Sighing heavily, I nod, frowning as I wrap my arms around his neck in attempt to keep myself balanced in his arms and make it easier to hold me.
Harriet stuffs her hands into her pockets. "This way." She nods in the direction of her jeep, turning on her heels and walking down the path. "I figured she could sleep in the back row, and I'll take the front."
Newt nods. "Good that." He mumbles. Though, as he follows behind Harriet, he winces with every other step, his leg obviously still in pain from our little incident earlier.
I groan. "I can walk, Newt-"
"No arguing." He repeats, not looking me in the eyes this time.
Although I want to force Newt to put me down, I listen to him, slowly leaning my head against his shoulder. I feel exhaustion begin to wash over my body after having dealt with the chaos that has occurred over the past hour.
Harriet takes out her keys and unlocks the vehicle, opening the back right door as Newt gently sets me down in the back seats, and I quietly lie down, curling up on my side as I stare at the back of the seats in front of me.
Huffing a sigh, he brushes back my hair before stepping back and closing the door.
Tears returning and beginning to slide down my face as I close my eyes, my heart aching for Aris and Sonya and Minho, I do my best to listen to the two of them outside the car, their voices muffled, but still audible.
"Do you think she'll be alright?" Newt asks.
Harriet sighs heavily. "(y/n) has endured a lot. Some sights that were beyond horrific." She explains. "But I don't think this could even break her."
There's a moment of silence before Newt speaks up again. "Aris said that she gets night terrors, and we had witnessed a pretty bad one; do you think she'll be having any tonight?"
"While I seriously hope not, I'm sure she will. Like I said, she's endured a lot, so, the more people she loses, the harder it gets for her to sleep at night."
"So you've all lost a lot of people over the past few years?"
"Yeah... Unfortunately, a solid group of them had to go at her hand..."
"What?" Newt asks. "What do you mean by that?"
"Listen, I wish I could tell you, but that's definitely (y/n)'s story to share, not mine." She says flatly. "Just understand that there's a reason that she claims responsibility for everything, and, by sunrise, she will likely be blaming herself for Sonya and Aris. Even for Minho."
Clearing his throat, I assume that Newt nods due to the lack of a verbal response.
"Well..." Harriet mumbles, "you should find a place to rest with your friends."
Newt clears his throat again. "Yeah, I guess I should..." He sighs. "Goodnight, then."
"Goodnight."
I hear the front door open, but exhaustion consumes me before I can see Harriet climb into the seats in front of me.
• • •
My eyes flutter open, pale light illuminating the small particles floating through the air above me.
Distorting my face in puzzlement, I slowly sit up, scanning my surroundings.
I'm sitting in a lone white bed in a dull room, the four walls surrounding me a light shade of grey; no other objects occupy the room aside from my bed. A florescent light directly above me illuminates the room, flickering every few seconds.
"What the...?"
Suddenly, an alarm blares, resembling the sound that would go off when the Cage had arrived with a Newbie or supplies for the Maze. I jump with a start, darting my eyes to the single, steel door across the empty room.
When the alarm stops, the door clicks as if it's been unlocked.
Hesitant, I worriedly furrow my brows together, slowly kicking my feet over the side of the bed and stepping down onto the cold, concrete flooring, and the icy feeling of the ground causes me to realize that I'm barefooted. I examine my clothes: light grey heathered sweatpants and a black t-shirt that reads 'Property of WICKED. Group B, Subject B3.' The name of the organization alone sends a shiver down my spine. I dart my eyes to the door, cautiously walking towards it and reaching a trembling hand out to the handle as my breathing picks up. Hesitating for a mere moment, I slowly turn the knob, pushing the door open.
I step out into a dark hall, the florescent lights lining the ceiling of the grey brick corridor much dimmer than the one in my room.
"Hello?" I call, looking to the left down the long, dark hall before glancing right, down the other direction. No response.
My heart begins to pound against my chest, and I look each direction once more, searching for any signs of life. When I fail to find another living being, I slowly turn on my heels to walk back into my room.
Suddenly, the shrill scream of a girl echoes from the left end of the corridor, causing me to freeze in my tracks, muscles immediately tensing up as I hold my breath.
The screaming stops.
"H-Hello?" I repeat, squinting into the darkness ahead.
After a few seconds of silence passes, a second blood-curdling scream rings in the hall, bouncing off of the walls, except, this time, the scream was a boy's.
Without a moment of hesitation, I sprint in the direction of the cries. "Hello?! Who's out there?!" I call.
A faint, pale blue light appears at the end of the hall, and, as I run along the concrete floor, getting closer to the source, I make out a window, the blue light coming from the room on the other side.
Rushing to the window and running into it with a thud as I fail to slow to a stop in time, I press my hands against the glass, panting as I catch a glimpse of strange machines, long, thick wires of various colors stretching out from them. "What the shuck...?" I mumble under my breath, trailing my eyes along the wires until I spot what's connected to them at the other end, breath hitching in my throat.
Minho, Aris, and Sonya. Each of them are strapped against upright platforms from head to toe, the wires connected to the sides of their heads while IV's are pricked into their arms, draining the blood from their pale, weak bodies.
"G-Guys?!" I call, but I'm cut off by a strange buzzing sound of the machine, which seems to send some sort of electrical pulses down the wires and shoot painful bolts through their bodies, causing them all to let out horrific, agonized cries, their veins bulging from their necks as they struggle in their restraints.
My heart stops. "NO! NO, STOP IT! STOP HURTING THEM!" I scream, beginning to pound on the glass with all of my might. "LET THEM GO!"
Wheezing heavily as I watch my friends suffer, their horrific screams rising in volume with each passing second, I quickly turn on my heels to search for something to break the glass with; however, I am stopped in my tracks when I look to the floor ahead, oddly familiar clothes scattered about the hall, the various articles of clothing stained with red splotches of blood, causing my stomach to tie into knots. "Wh-What-"
Before I can finish, the lights in corridor suddenly shut off, leaving me in the pitch black darkness, and everything falls silent, as if I've fallen into an abyss.
I hold my breath, shaking in fear, far too afraid to make a single sound or movement.
Trembling as my heart beats so hard against my chest that it feels like it is going to bust through my rib cage, I slowly reach out to the wall beside me, using it as a guide and forcing myself to tiptoe down the hall.
My stomach leaps to my throat as I step barefooted on the clothes, the blood still moist and warm. Still fresh.
I clasp my free hand over my mouth, fighting the urge to gag as a shudder runs down my spine, shaking the clothing off of my foot as the blood makes it stick. Trying to avoid the blood-soaked clothing on the floor as I walk down the hall, my feet eventually return to the cold concrete, only to step on something sharp, shooting pain up the ball of my foot.
Yelping, I look down just as the lights return, much brighter than before, only to reveal glass scattered about the concrete, a glass shard in my foot. Biting my lip to keep from yelping again, I carefully crouch down and remove the sharp, clear piece from my flesh, wincing in pain. I drop the glass on the floor, half of it now stained red with my own blood.
I take in a stuttered breath, slowly raising my eyes ahead of me to see a different window, except it's glass is shattered all over the ground on the path ahead. I glance over my shoulder to see if their is a different route I can take to avoid the shattered pieces ahead, but all that is behind me now is a grey brick wall.
Turning ahead, I inhale deeply, standing taller and bracing myself for pain as I begin to walk down the corridor slowly.
The first step triggers immense, stinging pain throughout the entire bottom half of my foot, and the second step is only worse.
Curling my toes in response to the pain, I clasp my hands over my mouth to keep from crying out, walking over the long stretch of glass at a terribly slow pace, my weight breaking the glass bits even more under my feet, slicing them up.
Once I step off the last bit of glass shards, stepping safely onto the concrete and walking to the windowsill, wincing with each step, I look back to see my blood footprints behind me.
Gulping anxiously, I turn forward and cautiously climb through the window, stepping through into an all-white room: white walls, white tile floor, white ceiling with blinding florescent lights. Empty.
Distorting my face in confusion, I look back out the windowsill, only to see that the glass is completely repaired, as if it was never broken in the first place. My heart stops.
I run to the glass, pounding my fists on it frantically. "HEY! LET ME OUT!" I scream. "SOMEONE, PLEASE! LET ME OUT!"
"You're the one that put yourself here. Just like you put all of us here." A familiar voice hisses from behind me.
Eyes widening as I stare out into the dark hall through the window, I shift my eyes slightly, just enough to examine the reflection on the clean, perfectly restored glass, and I can clearly see her familiar face scowling at me: Annie.
"A-Annie?" I stutter, quickly turning around to look at the girl, but she is replaced by several white beds that are patched with bright red blood stains, bodies underneath the blankets.
I let out a cry of fear, stumbling back against the window, pressing my back against it with all of my might in attempt to get as far away as possible.
As soon as I blink, the blankets have moved down just enough to reveal the lifeless faces of the friends I've lost.
Billie stares ahead at the ceiling, her dark brown eyes that used to match her beautiful dark skin are now nearly white. Catherine's naturally fair skin is now as white as the bed sheets she lies on, her lips parted from her last breath. I see every girl that was stung and had to be put down. I see Helen and Eleanor and Mira and Cleo. I break a sob as my eyes trail to Susan, her long, dark hair draped over the sides of the bed and her gentle eyes closed. But, in the dead center of the row of bodies, there is the worst sight of all: Annie, lying in her bed, the blanket covering her body nearly completely stained red from where I had impaled her with the spear, her curly, fiery red hair perfectly fanned out around her head on her pillow.
Although her lifeless lips do not move, I can hear her voice. "I told you to get them out of here, and yet you only saved yourself." She growls.
I feel as if I've been stabbed in the heart, and I sink to my knees on the icy tile floor. "I didn't mean for them all to die... I didn't know that we weren't safe-"
"You killed them!" She screams suddenly. "This is all your fault!"
Squeezing my eyes shut, I cover my ears. This is not Annie. This is not what she would say. "That's not true!"
"You killed them! They died because of you!"
"Get out of my head!"
"All these bodies are lined up because you failed to save them! You killed them! You killed them, (y/n)! This is all your fault!"
"Get out of my head!" I repeat.
"And now Aris, Sonya, even your new friend Minho, are going to end up just like the rest of us!"
"I SAID GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"
Before I can wake myself up with my own screaming, I jolt with a start due to the loud clicking sound of the car doors unlocking.
Harriet's head pops up over the seat. "Hey." She smiles weakly. "Sorry to wake you. I was just heading out to get some food and help search the wreckage. Do you want to join?"
Groaning as I groggily sit upright, rubbing my tired eyes, I look out the window to my side, squinting my eyes. They adjust to the bright sunshine from outside, focusing on the desert landscape as people somberly walk around, digging through the debris. Smoke continues to rise from some of the remains.
"Well?" Harriet asks.
Still groggy, I tiredly frown at her.
She laughs weakly. "Come on. We need to get food, and I need to do something about your bedhead."
Huffing a sigh, I slowly nod, turning towards the door to my right and swinging it open.
The instant I open the door, there's a thud against the side of the car, along with an, "Ow!" Looking down at the source, I spot Newt sitting on the dirt, rubbing the back of his head with a groan as he leans forward, away from the car.
"What the-?" Harriet says as she hops out of the passenger door, closing it behind her as she looks to the blonde boy on the ground. "Newt, what are you doing in the sand?"
Squinting one eye as he looks up at the two of us, he grunts as he gets to his feet. "I was just- Fry, Tommy, and I had gotten situated in one of the remaining tents with the help of Brenda and Jorge, but I was worried about- well- just-" He sighs, putting his hands on his hips as he looks down at his feet. "I was worried about (y/n) getting night terrors, and I didn't want you to be the only one trying to wake her from them, so I decided to lean up against the car and rest here so that I could hear if she started screaming." He explains. "But, uh, my head was resting where the car door meets the side of the car itself, so, when (y/n) opened the door, my head knocked back." He laughs lightly in embarrassment, scratching the back of his head.
I feel embarrassed blush rising in my cheeks as I slowly step out of the car, closing the door behind me. "Sorry..." I mumble.
He chuckles, shaking his head. "It's alright."
Harriet's brows draw together, eyes scanning Newt and I as she folds her arms, curious for a moment. "Well, I guess you can join us, too, then." She tells Newt. "We're about to get something to eat for breakfast and then rummage around."
Sighing, he nods. "Sounds like a plan."
"But first, (y/n)." Harriet says, grabbing my shoulders and turning my back to her before finger-brushing my hair back.
Like a little kid, I squeeze my eyes shut as she tugs at the knots. "Ow!"
"Oh, don't whine." She laughs.
Newt, lifting a brow, chuckles to himself as he watches. "How about I get the food and bring it back here?"
"That would be good." Harriet says.
"Ow!" I snap again.
Nodding, Newt turns on his heels and walks down the path in the direction of the rest of the campground.