𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗥𝗨𝗡𝗡𝗘𝗥 𝗚𝗜𝗥𝗟 ᐅ 𝙣𝙚𝙬𝙩

𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗿𝘁𝘆 𝘀𝗶𝘅

"How's she doing?" I ask, opening the door slowly.

My eyes land on the Box Girl, peacefully laid down on the bed, her chest rising and falling softly. She's still just as pale as she was when I first saw her the other day... still hauntingly familiar. I know I've seen her. I know it.

"Keeps groaning weird things in her sleep," Jeff says while staring at her quizzically.

"Can't pick out what she says half the damn time."

"What things did you make out?"

Jeff sighs, dragging his hand down his face and letting it prop up his chin. "She said everything's going to change again. Like she did when she came up in the Box."

"She also said W.C.K.D is good."

W.C.K.D is good. It's not good. It's never been good. Images flash before my eyes, making a haze of bright colours swirl around me as I brace myself. I haven't had a vision in so long. Why? Why have they stopped until now?

But this time it's not a memory. I see the girl, exactly where she is... wearing a white lab coat. She looks the same; her hair is still a deep brown, long eyelashes resting on her cheeks, yet she seems the opposite of peaceful. A lab coat.

Where have I seen one of those before? 

"Thea?" Clint asks carefully, putting a hand on my shoulder and pulling me back to reality. I brink furiously. She's not wearing the coat anymore. Why was I shown this?

"Yeah. Fine," I dismiss. "Make sure she eats something."

"She eats less and less every time."

"I don't really care whether you have to shove the food down her throat or not, she can't die on us. If she starves, we don't get our answers." And with that, I leave the room, the image of the girl in a lab coat burned into my head.

❀

I judder awake as the boom of the doors opening cracks through the air. Anxiety racks my fatigued body, running through my veins in jitters as three names fly into the front of my mind. Minho. Alby. Thom.

"You look terrible," I grumble as I stand to my feet, offering Newt a hand, which he takes without hesitation. He really does look awful — almost as if he hadn't slept in years. I don't blame him. He's known Minho for much longer than I have.

Newt replies immediately. "Better than yesterday."

I give a faint smile at his attempt at a joke, however I'm sure it comes out as nothing but a grimace. Newt doesn't return the gesture. I don't really think he cares about faking smiles today.

"Come on!" Zart's voice shouts over the scraping of the Doors — stone against stone. Other voices join him, although I don't pay any mind to them. My only focus is the slowly opening Doors and the confirmation of my friends' death.

"The doors are opening!"

"You think they'll be back?"

"You think I'm a God? I don't shucking know!"

"Quiet!" Newt calls from somewhere off to the side of me. "The bloody lot of you!"

I've never hated the silence more. The Doors open agonisingly slow, and I want nothing more than to get in between them and force them to open. One second. Two. Three.