A Way Back - The Maze Runner (♡Newt)

Chapter 14

Newt's pov

I couldn't stop thinking about what Cally had told me. She remembers, her family, her friends, her live... I would give everything to remember.
     I was lying on my own bed, Minho was already asleep in the bed beside mine. But I couldn't fall asleep. Was it really true? Did she come from some other bloody dimension? Is that even possible?
     A loud snore from Minho woke me from my thoughts. After the first snore, it didn't stop. He just went on and on. Having enough of it, I decided to wake him.
      "Minho." He didn't wake up.
     "Minho!" He still didn't react. I took a pillow and threw it at him. When it hit his face he woke up. Realizing what had happened he took the pillow and threw it back at me.
     "What the hell man." He mumbled in a sleep drunk voice.
     I caught the pillow and lay down on it again. "You were snorin', it was bloody annoying."
     "You're bloody annoying, Shuckface." Minho growled while closing his eyes again, "now let me sleep."
     It didn't take long before Minho had fallen asleep again. And not long after that I was also trying to sleep, but everything that Cally had told me was still creeping trough my mind.

~.~.~

The next morning I woke up when a pillow hit my face. I opened my eyes to see Minho standing beside his bed with a big smile plastered on his face. "Payback for last night." He said.
     I shove the pillow off of me and it fell on the ground, "I expected somethin' like that." I mumbled as I sat up in my bed. Looking on my watch I saw it was just 5:45. "It's bloody 5:45, why wake me this early?" I said in annoyance.
     "Aw, is our Newtie still tired? Maybe you shouldn't have stayed up so late." Minho said teasingly, "why did you stay up so long anyway?" Before I could say a thing he continued, "ow yeah! Of course, because of the Greenie, right?" There was a look in his eyes that I was way too familiar with. It was the 'I know something you don't want me to know' look.
     Not being in the mood for his assumptions I rolled my eyes at him. "We were just talkin', that's all."
     "Talking? Really? Is that why you guys went to the Deadheads?" There it was again, that look. This time it got accompanied by his voice of suspicion.
     When he mentioned the Deadheads I looked up at him. How did he know that? Did someone follow us? Did they hear our conversation?
     Apparently I had looked up too fast because my movement made a cocky smile appear on Minho's face. "So I was right, there did happen something between you two. I suspected something when I saw you two walk to it last night, but I wasn't sure if something happened."
     Okay, so he didn't know what we talked about. Thank God. If Cally found out someone knew, the day after she told me she wouldn't trust me anymore. And if I want to find out more she needs to trust me. Besides, I don't want her angry at me.
     "Well," Minho continued, having no regards for my mental conversation. "What happened? Are you two a thing now?"
     I took my shirt from the ground and put it on, "nothin' happened, between us." I tried to convince him, but he clearly didn't want to believe me.
     "Of course not. Then what did you guys do in the Deadheads?"
     "We went for a walk. Cally likes the Deadheads so we walked there with Bark for some time until we decided to go to sleep."
     Minho squinted his eyes together, still looking at me with suspicion. "There really didn't happen anything else?"
     Again I rolled my eyes at him, "no, there didn't."
     "Okay, if you say so."  After he said that the interrogation stopped and silence fell.
     "Why are ya even up this early?" I asked him, realizing he hadn't given me an answer before.
     "Because I've got to start Cally's training. I'm gonna show her some stuff before we go into the Maze, so I thought it'd be better to start early." After he said that, Minho took his bag from the ground and walked out of the room.
     It's only 6:00... I could sleep for another 30 minutes....

~.~.~

Cally's pov

Loud bashes on my door made me open my eyes. Bark had been peacefully sleeping by my side, but the moment the noise had started she had shot to the door to bark at it. 
     "Rise and shine, Cally!" I heard Minho's voice breaking through the wooden door and over the dog's barking.
     "Bark quiet." I commanded her while turning around in my bed, not feeling like getting up. Bark stopped barking, but Minho didn't stop bashing on my door, "Cally! Get your lazy ass out here or I'm coming in!"
     "It's too early! Go away!" I called back, annoyed at my rude awakening. But Minho didn't listen. He opened the door and walked inside as if he owned the place. 
     "If you don't get out right now, I'm not training you to become a Runner. Good that?"
     I lifted my upper body so I was sitting in my bed, "okay, I'm coming. Just let me change clothes and I'll be down in a few minutes."
     Minho nodded, "don't take too long, Greenie, or I'll leave without you."
     I stood up and walked towards Minho, glaring at him. "Good luck with that, the walls haven't even opened yet." I said while pushing the boy out of my room.
     "Not yet, but when they do and you're not done, I'll leave without you."
     "Understood, boss." I said as I closed my door in his face to get dressed.
     I had more clothes then before. I talked to Alby about not having more clothes then I was wearing and he took me to some kind of supply closet. They didn't have any woman's clothing, but there were a lot of guy clothes which did fit. After that I sent down a note in the Box, requesting female clothes and underwear, which did come up the next week.
     After I got ready I joined Minho on his table. He smiled at me briefly when he noticed I had arrived.  "Ready to start?"
     "More than ready." I said, nodding my head with enthusiasm.
     "Good. Finish your food, then we'll make our lunch packages and the day will start."
     Not wanting to waste any more time I shoved down my breakfast, gave Bark some food and  followed Minho. I thought we would go to the Doors, they were going to open pretty soon. But Minho took me to some kind of storage room I had never seen before.
     "What are we doing here?" Minho looked at me for a moment when he silently opened a secret hedge in the ground. "Okay, that's... interesting." I mumbled while I followed Minho down the small stairs. It let to a room with one light. It took me a moment to adjust, but once I had I could see the room was filled with all kinds of weapons. Bows, arrows, swords, daggers, knives and a lot of things I had never seen before.
     "You guys never mentioned a secret arsenal." I said while looking a little better at a wooden bow that hung on a wall.
     "It wouldn't be much of a secret if we did, Slinthead."
     "Well, Prettyboy, are you gonna tell me why we're here?"
     Minho took out a box from under a cupboard, to my surprise it was filled with shoes. "What's your shoe size?"
     "About 5.5 sometimes 6, depends on the shoe."
     This got Minho to look up at me from the box. "How do you know that? You've only got those." He said while lazily gesturing to the black ankle boots I've been wearing since the day I got there.
     Too tired to think about a valid excuse I just shrugged, "magic or something."
     Minho raised an eyebrow before grabbing a pair of 5.5 shoes. "Here, try those."
     I looked at the shoes for a moment, they were probably once a shiny white. But the years had them change color, leaving yellowish stains all over it. "Do they all look like this?"
     Minho nodded, "Yep."
     "Well whoever chose them doesn't have good taste." I mumbled more to myself than to Minho as I put them on.
     "It doesn't matter how it looks, as long as it's functional."
     I stood up and walked around a little, they fitted just fine. "I agree on that, but that doesn't change the fact that they look awful- They fit by the way."
     "Okay, then next thing. There are a lot of crazy things out there, so you need a weapon." Minho took out another box which was filled with knives and small daggers, "chose some and we'll move on."
     After a short hesitation I chose one small and one bigger dagger and bound them to my belt. One on each side. "Just two?" Minho asked me.
     I hadn't been expecting that reaction, but I stayed with my decision. "Well, I still have my pocket knife, so I have three. I think I'll be good."
     Minho nodded again. "Okay, let's go."
     As we exited the secret room we went to the Map-Room. Minho showed me the boxes with papers and maps of every section. He explained to me how it worked and handed me papers and a pencil to take notes on. After our stop at the Map-room we made our way to the now open doors. Feeling the nerves for the first time I stared into the big road in front of me. The big walls casting big shadows, making it much darker than the Glade. This combined with the ivy that grew everywhere gave the Maze an ominous look. "There's no backing out now, Greenie. You ready?"
     I looked at Minho with determination in my eyes. "I don't want to back out."
     "Good," Minho said.
     "What are we waiting for?" I asked when Minho kept looking at me.
     "Your stalker can't come with us. You know that right?"
     For a moment I didn't understand what he ment, but when I followed his gaze it hit me. "You mean Bark?"
     Minho nodded, "that dog's no good inside the Maze. Better let her stay."
     "That's probably for the best." I said as I turned to Bark, who was lying on the ground beside me. "Bark, stay." I told her. she looked at me with her big brown eyes as she always did, not really understanding what I ment.
     "Well, let's go." Minho said after he realized that was all that was gonna be to it and ran into the Maze.
     "Alons-y," I mumbled as I ran after him. I looked back at Bark, who had jumped up and was walking back and fort by the door. Barking at me to come back, apparently she was too scared for the Maze to go in. Bark's reaction made me feel guilty for a split second, but I quickly turned my full attention to Minho and the Maze.
     Minho's pace was easy to get used to, it was regular. I knew finding a steady pace of my own was going to be a problem. I always tend to be all over the place with my speed, going faster when I felt like it, slowing down to ketch my breath. I couldn't do that in the Maze, that's too risky. 
     Left, right, right, straight, right. I tried to remember every turn we took and after some time I was getting the hang of it.
     "You good, Cally?" Minho asked, glancing at me.
     "Perfectly fine." I reacted, my breath had gotten a bit faster, but I still had control over it.
     "Okay, Newbie, watch and learn." Minho took out one of his knives, he ran closer to the wall, took some of the ivy in his hand and cut it off without slowing down. He trough it on the ground and turned to me, "your turn."
     I nodded and took out the small dagger from my belt. I ran closer to the wall, grabbed some ivy and tried to cut it, but failed. "Damn it," I mumbled as I knocked some of the ivy that got stuck on my hand off on my pants.
     "Don't sweat it, try again, Just slow down a bit this time." I nodded and did as I was told, this time I did cut off some of the ivy. "That was better. Now try it again a few more times."
     I tried it a few more times, once in a while I would have a clean cut without slowing down. Other times my hand would get stuck in the ivy or my knife would slip on the plants liquids, but I was making progress.
     After a few hours Minho slowed down until we got to a stop. "Break time," he said as he took out his lunch. I followed his example and sat down, biting down on a sandwich.
     "Do you always take a break here?"
     "Most of the time, yeah. It's a way to know if I'm on schedule, but it's sometimes hard to find with the moving walls and all that."
     We didn't way much while we ate, but when I started to drink Minho spoke up again. "Don't drink too much. You're gonna need it later. Besides, you can get nauseous if you drink too much after all the running."
     I already knew that, but I just agreed with him and put my bottle away. After Minho was done with his lunch we started running again. We ran for another hour or so before reaching a dead end.
     "This is it, the end of my section." Minho said as he stopped running. I looked at the walls surrounding us as my eye fell on something shiny on one of them. I walked closer to it and shoved away some of the ivy to get a better look at it. It was a silver plate, pinned to the wall with big letters on them. It read: World In Catastrophe: killzone Expiriment Department.
    "Ow... so that's what WICKED stands for." I said more to myself than to Minho.
     "What did you say?" Minho asked me as he came standing beside me.
    "Nothing important. I mean, I was wondering what the letters engraved into the Beetle Blades stood for. But I guess this is it."
     Minho shrugged, seeming uninterested in the plate. "Yeah I guess. I stopped paying attention to those things a long time ago. 'Come on, Cally, we've got to head back."
     I turned back to him and we started picking up the pace again. After hours of running we came back trough the doors into the Glade. We continued running until we had reached the Map room.
     "Okay, Newbie, let's see what you've got. Write down everything you remember."
     I started drawing the map and writing down everything I thought was worth mentioning. After I had finished it I showed it to Minho, who inspected it carefully.
     "Not bad, some of the proportions are a bit off. But nothing you can't learn. Maybe one day you'll be good at it."
     I looked up at him, he was out of breath and sweaty, but the clammy feeling on my skin indicated I was as well. "I'll take that as a compliment." I said as we put my first map into the box with the others.
     "Let's get some dinner." Minho said. 
     "Thank God. I'm starving."