NIGHT BEDS ━︎━︎ THE MAZE RUNNER

xxxvii. TAKE ME HOME.

night beds // cherry blossoms.

GALLY SAT UP FROM THE BED, sweating like crazy, clutching his chest until his fingers gained the strength to tug his shirt. Chuck was screaming but it was too late. The same event of him killing the young boy rewinded each night. Ever since the night of their honeymoon MK wouldn't wake up at the break of dawn with the peace around her as the sun rose, just like what Gally had promised her in his wedding vow. Instead, her eyes would burst open, seeing the dark night sky, thinking Gally's screams were him being brutally attacked.

Routinely, she would hold him down and shush him before he would wake up literally everyone. Usually it was Minho or Frypan or even Brenda waking up as well, not to help Gally calm down but to groan in annoyance, begging MK to do something.

And so she did.

"Any night sweats?" the lady asks, using her small light to check his eyes.

"Yeah," Gally said dryly, completely drained from lack of sleep and exhaustion.

The lady nods and goes through the line of bottles that were set on the same table MK saw when she woke up in the bed.

"Any sleep walking?"

"How should I know? I'm sleeping," Gally shrugs.

MK spoke for him, feeling the second hand embarrassment from his attitude. "Actually, yeah. It's happened twice. Once he gripped my arm in his sleep until I could feel it was gonna rip off, he was standing by the bed trying to pull me out, I didn't know where he was trying to take me. The second time he was walking towards the ocean until the water reached his waist. He could of drowned himself or gotten hypothermia." The sound of her voice trembled him.

"Am I to assume this is a tendency of PTSD?" the woman asks. "I mean, we've all seen everything fall apart before we got here."

"I killed Chuck," Gally looked at MK, his eyes had dark circles underneath.

MK remembered her vow. Whenever you feel like everything is falling apart, I will be there.

"No, it's . . ."

Gally squeezed her hand.

MK sighs and looks up at the doctor. "This has been going on for several nights. I'm sure you've heard him?"

The doctor nodded, knowing what she meant. "What about those sleeping pills I prescribed him?"

"Gally has been taking them, I've been reminding him. But they just . . . wear off."

Gally buries his head on her shoulder.

"This is quite serious. But if this has been occurring for a while, then we're going to do more than rely on sleeping pills."

MK raised one eyebrow.

"Therapy."

"Oh come on!" Gally suddenly jerked away from his wife, getting up from the bed. "Talking isn't gonna help! Talking isn't gonna bring him back! I killed Chuck, okay?! And he came back to haunt me and I deserve it! He's come back in the form of my dreams just to remind me how much of a piece of shit I am!"

And he storms out. MK gets up and rubs her hands on her pants. "I'm so sorry. My husband, he can be short tempered."

"Not surprised. People tend to be irritated from lack of sleep."