Her || The Maze Runner

Forty Two

Teresa. She was finally awake. Maybe that was why Mara had been hallucinating Teresa; maybe it was a warning or another one of her 'quirks' along with speaking through her mind.

Newt jiggled his keys and Mara could hear him slotting them into the door's lock.

"Newt, stop. Leave me here." She demanded. His face came into view through the small hole in the wall. He looked worried; his eyebrows were raised slightly and his eyes were wider than usual, as if they were about to pop out of their sockets.

"I'm not bloody leaving you out of anything, M. This is important, you bloody well know you need to be there with us."

"You're not leaving me alone." She told him, this time her voice was softer. A chill ran down her spine; the contained room in which she stood had gotten colder. She didn't have to turn around to know what was going on. She already knew that one of her hallucinated friends was standing directly behind her. "I'm not alone. While you're talking to her, I will be too. Just from in here."

Mara knew she sounded crazy, she could see her madness reflecting through Newt's eyes. He knew, somehow he knew that she was right, that she could talk to her. She hadn't told him about Teresa, he didn't know they had spoken to each other through some strange mind speaking method, but somehow he knew that she needed to stay inside the Slammer. Even still, he didn't move, and that flared up a surprising anger inside of Mara.

"Newt just go! Bloody hell, what does it take for me to make you go!" She yelled, making him flinch and jump backwards slightly. It hurt him, but she couldn't control her anger no matter how hard she tried to calm herself down.

"Someone's a little cranky." Minho smirked, poking his head in front of Newt. "Adios, amigo." He saluted before disappearing from sight, dragging Newt and the other two boys with him.

"How did you know it was me?" The girl's voice came from behind her. Mara closed her eyes, lowered her head and sighed; every time she saw another creation of her imagination her head throbbed harder and harder. If she looked at Teresa the pain was going to intensify, but trying to talk to her was going to make the pain much worse.

"Who else would it be, Teresa?" She asked, reopening her eyes.

The girl chuckled. "Do you remember last night, when I told you that I triggered the ending?" She asked. Mara lifted her head in interest, what the hell was Teresa about to say? Giving in, she turned to face the conscious girl, which struck pain in her head.

"Yeah? I haven't got all day, you know."

"Things are about to get much worse for you and the rest of your friends. But what can you do? You're just a girl with a lot of problems."

"Shut up!" Mara yelled, darting towards the girl. She stopped, remembering that Teresa wasn't really there. But deep down, she knew the girl's warning was true. If something was coming, it was going to be bad. 

Mara listen to me, the girl you're seeing is fake! Teresa's voice boomed through Mara's mind, as if she was shouting inside of her head. Mara held her hands to her ears, crouching in pain. Who was she supposed to believe? The girl she was seeing but wasn't really there, or the girl inside her head who could've just been a fake voice? Newt's coming to get you.

"What's going to happen?" Mara cried out to the girl who stood above her, dropping her hands from her head. She didn't know who to believe, she just hoped that if Newt was coming, he'd be there soon.

"Bad things." Fake or real Teresa cackled, closing in on Mara. "Very bad things, indeed. But who to kill first, that is the question." Two knives poked out from the insides of her sleeves and landed in her hands as she advanced towards Mara. "I guess I'll settle for you."

She crawled backwards, trying to get away from the girl in front of her. Her arm launched backwards in an awkward way, twisting around and weakening itself. Almost immediately Mara smashed her skull against the solid ground, an explosion of agony surfacing  at the back of her head. She clung to the area of pain, curling up into a ball and screaming out for help. Her eyes squeezed shut, and she anticipated the attempt of Teresa pulling her limb from limb.

"Mara? Mara!"

Two hands lay across her torso, lifting her shaking body from the ground and into the air. She kept screaming in torture, the pain searing through her body was unbearable. It was as if someone was crushing her body, piercing her skin with spears and knives and tearing her skull apart all at the same time. 

"I promise it's going to be okay, love. We'll stop this." The voice whispered into her ears, and it was barely recognisable as Newt's through the noise that filled Mara's head; Teresa laughing, the grinding of the Doors to the Maze, the squealing of the Grievers. They all mixed to form one gut retching sound that she seemed to have no escape from.

She tried to stay strong, to stay conscious and desperately attempted to pull herself back to reality, but nothing seemed to work. As much as she tried to block out the clutter of sounds, she couldn't. All she could do was scream out.

A few minutes later Mara felt herself touch a softer and padded surface- which she presumed was her bed. Multiple hands held down her arms and legs but she still struggled to get free, even though she knew the hands belonged to her friends. In her mind, everyone seemed like an enemy; she wanted to pull them apart and it scared her. Why couldn't she control her own thoughts and actions? Was there more to the hallucinations? Maybe this was the something bad Teresa had been mocking her about.

"Relax, okay?" Newt half yelled into Mara's ear, and she really wanted to do as he said but she couldn't. Nothing she did stopped how her body reacted. She could feel his warm touch link with her hand which seemed to help slightly, but it wasn't enough. "Mara, you're safe here. I won't let anyone hurt you, none of us will. Please, darling, just relax."

"Make it stop!" She howled, scratching at the bed beneath her torment. Every second got louder and more painful, so painful it was beginning to numb her whole body. Another burst of blistering pain vibrated through her head, reaching the extreme of everything she had ever felt. Mara wanted to claw at her face and remove the pain she felt, but it was so excruciating she couldn't even move her body any more.

In pain, Mara dug the back of her head into the pillow below her which swam in the tears that had dropped from her eyes. She sucked in as much air as she could manage through her screams of pain, but not even a few seconds later the increasing noises had stopped.

Again, she swallowed more air. Breath after breath she found herself  relaxing into the bedding she lay on and loosening her grip on Newt's hand. The hands that had pinned her body down had gone and Mara could finally open her eyes.

Newt hovered over her, and as soon as Mara's eyes flickered open her pulled her closer to him into a tight embrace. The first thing she noticed was that Clint, Jeff and the rest of the Med-Jacks stood at the back of the room watching them,not Minho, Tommy and Alby. Newt turned back to them and politely asked them to leave, which they did. Mara was glad- she didn't want to talk about everything that had happened in front of anyone except Newt and her closest friends.

"I'm okay." She croaked and Newt pushed her away from his body, holding Mara at arms length. "Where's Minho, Tommy and Alby?"

"They're with Tommy's lovebird, down at the Deadheads." He told her, gesturing with his head towards the direction of the woodland.

"How... did you know? How did you know I needed help?"

"The girl told me." He replied. "I don't know how she knew, but she did and she was bloody well right, I'm just glad I believed her.. What the hell happened to you Mara? Who was there with you in there?"

"Teresa. She was there with me. For a while she's been speaking to me telepathically, but i just thought it was WICKED messing with me. I saw her in the Maze and in the Slammer and she kept telling me that bad things were going to happen. Did anything happen to you?"

"Other than worrying about you?"

"Yeah, other than that." Mara hoped that he would say no, but Newt nodded. Her heart sank knowing something else had happened to them, but she could only prey that whatever had happened wasn't that bad. Except in the Glade, that was very unlikely. "What happened, Newt?"

"The Doors. The bloody Maze Doors; they haven't shut yet. Doesn't look like they will be, neither."