I let the warm water cascade down my naked body as I sat on the cold tile floor, watching the dry blood pool around my body. Blood that wasn't mine.

I couldn't move. I couldn't wash my hair... Too many things were happening all at once. I could hear the boys in the next room, they were all shouting and cheering as they felt the happiness of the showers and being cared for... happy that they weren't forced to take a blistering cold shower at five in the morning, but instead a warm one in the moments where they probably needed it the most. But Teresa and I were silent. She only spoke a word to me when she was getting in the shower, asking me if I needed a towel. I had nodded and thanked her.

I couldn't help the feeling like everyone was suddenly treating me like a piece of fragile glass. Thomas too. Maybe it was just because we had just watched our twelve year old best friend die in our arms. I hated feeling so...helpless. I knew that I should probably pick my ass up and walk around like everything was normal, abide by the advice I gave to Thomas while he was spilling his feelings to us about what he knew. I was mourning instead of letting the sadness fuel me. And I hated that I couldn't push myself to feel a different way.

I stood myself up from the cold tile and dipped my head under the flowing water. With a numb heart, I grabbed a bottle of what looked like shampoo off of a little seat in the corner, and examined the label, maybe trying to remember when I used this stuff before the Maze...all we had was soap. I uncapped it and squeezed a little too much into my hand. Then I just stared at it. I stared at the bit of shampoo I had in my hand, not having any intention of putting it in my hair.

Just take the damn shower, Mae, I told myself in my head. But it was like my mind was separate from what my body was doing. Like they weren't connected anymore. I could almost feel the little bit of happiness and sanity drain from me like the memories had when I came up into the Box. Granted, I wasn't screaming and punching the ceiling, but it's what I wanted to do.

With a frustrated grunt, I slapped the shampoo onto the top of my head, squeezing my eyes shut firmly to stop the oncoming tears from falling. I was sick of crying. Sick of everything really. I harshly messaged it into my head, then stood under the water. My eyes were closed, and I was holding my breath, trying not to breathe in any of the hot water. When I was sure all of the shampoo was gone from my hair, I stayed put, feeling the heat slightly burn my back. I kept holding my breath until I felt like I couldn't anymore, and only then did I step out from under the water and let out a cough into my bare elbow.

"You okay?" Teresa's voice echoed throughout the room and through my thoughts. I nodded, but then realized that she couldn't see me. I sighed, hating the fact that I had to speak. My voice probably sounded like I swallowed a handful of pebbles.

"Fine." I responded with one word. I questioned if she had heard me, because she didn't respond. Or maybe I just spoke too quietly.

Eventually, I forced myself to grab the other bottle of hair washing treatment and finish the shower that was taking me an abnormally long time. I shut the water off when I was done with it, suddenly wanting nothing more than to get out of the warmth and be dry. I couldn't make up my mind. Did I want to stomach the food I had previously eaten, or did I want to throw it all up and cry myself to sleep once again? I wanted to run away, but I wanted to stay with my friends. I wanted to be alone.

I quickly wrapped a towel around my body and stepped out, seeing the pile of clothes that laid on a nice bench. There was only one pile left, so I assumed that Teresa was already in the other room. I walked over to them, feeling a strange sense of familiarity wash over me. I suddenly felt like I was a Greenie again. Finding my room on the first night I came up in the shucking Box. The feeling of wanting to cry, but knowing that I had to stay strong. But what was there to be strong for now? If we really were free, then where do we go?

The people gave me a grey tank top and some weird black leggings. The first thing I put on was the sports bra that was way too small for me, but for some reason, all of the other clothes fit perfectly. I also had a pair of grey tennis shoes and socks. I praised these people on finally giving me a comfortable pair of shoes. I figured out how to tie a neat enough bow, only using the faintest of memory that I had of the subject. When I thought I was all ready, I ran my fingers through my wet hair quickly and stepped out the door into the other room.

Teresa was sitting in a chair with a small smirk on her face, getting her hair dried by a girl in a white lab coat. I furrowed my eyebrows when my own eyes met an empty chair, with another lady in a lab coat.

"Would you like to come and sit down?" She asked me. Her hair was pulled back in a bun that was too tight for her face, and she almost looked like a human version of the Rat Man who had led us here. I scrunched up my nose but walked towards her anyways as she handed me a binder, "I can do any of these hairstyles if you want."

I pointed at Teresa, "What's she getting?"

Teresa smiled at me, probably happy that I was asking a question about her. But I had no idea that there were any other hairstyles other than a ponytail and a bun on the top of your head. All I wanted was some input from someone who seemed like she liked all this type of stuff. The only person that I liked touching my hair was Newt.

"Oh," The lady waved her hand and gave me a small laugh, trying to be nice, "She's just getting a blow dry and a brush. Nothing too fancy. What do you want though?" She asked, making me shift in my seat. I opened the small binder and raised my eyebrows when I saw a whole bunch of different hairstyles on a paper, laminated and prepped like this was all planned. I pointed to the first one I saw, too overwhelmed to look through the rest of the pages.

"This one." I tilted my head back to her. In the picture, it was a pale mannequin head with a brown wig on the top of it. There were small braids on each side of her head, and one big loose braid that captured all of the hair on top. The rest of the hair stayed down. The lady smiled and nodded, running her own fingers through my hair. I cringed at the feeling, knowing I wouldn't like this one bit.

She smirked down at me and grabbed a brush and what I remembered enough to be a blow drier, "Good choice. Your face suits it."

I scrunched my nose up at the comment, "Thanks?"

About an hour or so of drying and brushing and pulling, I was getting ready to slap the lady in the face. She was pulling so hard to get the braids right that I thought that my scalp was gonna fall off. Water lined the edges of my eyes, and not because of my dead friends, but because I honestly thought that my hands were going to tear off the armrests of the seat. The whole time, Teresa just watched, scrunching her face up and messaging her own scalp like she could feel my pain. The lady never stopped talking. I was hardly listening, and she hardly even let me answer the questions she asked before she kept on rambling. After I felt like this was never going to end, it finally did, and she turned my chair around.

"Holy shit." I murmured at the first glance. The lady clapped her hands together in joy and did a small jump into the air. She must've been younger than me.

I looked...badass—as Minho would probably say. I couldn't describe it even if I tried, but I just knew I looked really, really good. I turned my head to look at Teresa, who let out a breathy laugh and slapped her hand over her mouth.

"Newt's in trouble."

I laughed at her comment but shook my head and stood up out of the chair, suddenly feeling a little bit better than I did when I was in the shower. I looked away from the mirror, never being able to stare at my reflection for too long after seeing myself on the WICKED computer screen. But I was a bit relieved to see that I didn't look like that anymore. All the blue veins were gone, and the humanity I had returned to my eyes.

We were led out of the room by the same girl who had done Teresa's hair. My hair lady exaggeratedly waved goodbye to us, and out of politeness we waved back. But as soon as the doors closed, I widened my eyes and turned to Teresa, "Shuck, I thought she was gonna pull out my hair."

She stifled a laugh, "So did I."

I smirked at the girl but continued to stare at the back of the lab coat that the woman had on. We walked down a few hallways before she opened the door for us. Teresa and I walked through, and my hardened expression returned as I looked around. Again, the floors were concrete, but everything seemed strangely clean. Like one big experiment room. At the thought, I furrowed my eyebrows and stopped walking. Only when I saw Minho running on a treadmill did I sigh of relief and keep moving.

The woman walked in front of Teresa and I again, leading us to a cot in the back of the room. I ignored all of the Gladers stares as we walked through, only meeting eyes with Newt. I gave him a small smile and a wink, and his eyes just widened as he shook his head. He looked better. He was all clean, and his hair was nicely brushed down. The only thing that stood out was the big cut on the side of his nose, but I liked it. I thought it gave him character. Although, I would miss his dirty white sweater.

I looked back ahead of me to see Teresa hop onto a weird type of bed thing. It had some kind of tissue paper on it, and then I noticed that there was an empty one right next to her. I treated myself as well and sat on it, leaning my hands back and relaxing my body. I looked around, seeing all the boys doing different things. Minho was running on a treadmill, and so was Frypan strangely enough. They both had these weird wire things coming out from beneath their shirts, and a wave of confusion was sent through me when I saw where the wires led to. There were monitors that reported things such as their heart rate. I couldn't remember how I know what that is, but I didn't spend too much time thinking about it, because I saw someone holding a giant needle walk towards Newt.

I sat up and watched as he nervously spoke a few words to the bald man, his eyes flicking across the length of the sharp object they were gonna give him. I kept my eyes on his, hoping that he would meet mine for a split second. When the man knelt down and gently grabbed Newt's forearm, he finally looked at me. I gave him a small smile, and breathed in through my nose, letting my chest heave up so that he would get the memo that he was supposed to breathe with me. He did, and I held the breath until he reached his max capacity, and then we let it out together. By then, the man had been done releasing whatever he was giving to Newt. I nodded proudly to myself before I saw another person start walking toward the direction of Teresa and I.

The person was a man. A big, bulging man who looked like he could knock me out with one punch. His muscles almost tore through the lab coat, and I clenched my jaw when I saw him smirk towards me, the hairs on his intimidating mustache lifting up for only a moment. If I thought Jansen was ugly, then what the hell was this guy supposed to be?

"Hi." He spoke one word to me, and I wanted to run for the sandy hills that laid just outside the building. His gravelling voice made my heart race, and my eyes flicked up and down his big body before I found myself scooting away from the man and back onto the tissue paper.

He chuckled, "It's okay. I'm not gonna hurt you at all. I just wanna take you to your new quarters." I moved my eyes from his to where Newt was sitting, trying to look over the man's shoulders to see my face.

"Aren't you gonna test me or something?" I asked, motioning to the others who were clearly being worked on in some type of way.

The man laughed again. I hadn't realized I was so funny, "Test you?" He repeated, "No. Well...eventually. We just want to show you where you'll be for the rest of your stay here," He cocked his head the other direction.

"Where are they going?" I asked, looking at the others again.

"Since you and Teresa are girls, we figured we'd give you two some privacy away from the boys. Now if you'll just—"

"What if I don't want privacy?" I could feel my voice start to get louder, "I want to be with them. I'm not going anywhere with you. I don't even know who you are."

He held his hands up in defense, looking around at some of the other adults that gave him a warning look, "Look, kid. I'm just doing what I'm supposed to do. If it makes you feel any better, my name is John. You can even call me Johnny if you want. All I'm supposed to do is take you to your new room so that you can get comfortable before they decide to test you, okay? See how healthy you are. We can't have any Cranks running around this place, even if you are immunes."

"What even are those?" I let my curiosity get the best of me as I finally asked one of the many questions in my brain right now, "Cranks. A-Are they bad?"

John scoffed, "Bad?" He repeated my words again, "Bad? Cranks are the worst possible thing you could think of. They're what happens to people who are fully past the Gone."

"The Gone?" I reminded myself of Thomas when he first came out of the Box...asking a question about everything that came out of our mouths. I never really thought of myself as one to ask many questions, but right now they were all I could think of to try and stop my mind from slipping into the depressing state of where my eyes looked into Chuck's for the last time.

The man sighed and rubbed his eyes, "They'd warned me you'd be stubborn," He murmured, probably not intending for me to hear. But suddenly, he dropped his hand and gave me a smile. One that was probably meant to comfort me, but it didn't. Not at all. "Look, kid. I know you've been through hell and back for a long time. But all we want to do is help you. Give you food, clean clothes, a proper bed. You'll get all of those things if you just follow me. I can lead you away from all this, okay? Just c'mon."

He waved his hand towards me, trying anything that will make me want to follow him. I grappled with the thought in my mind for a few seconds before finally hopping off of the medical bed and standing in front of John, who was about a foot taller than me. But I was used to looking up to people like this. I did live in a Maze full of guys for a month.

"Will I get to see my friends after?" I asked, that being my only question. John's eyes hardened for a second before he nodded.

"Absolutely. If you'd just—"

"Come with you, I got it," I rolled my eyes, annoyed with the nagging already. He smiled and turned around on his heel, walking towards the same entrance I had just came through a couple minutes ago. I looked back at Teresa, who had probably heard our entire conversation. She furrowed her eyebrows at us, and I gave her a small shrug. When I passed Thomas and Newt, they were looking at me with the same amount of worry that I was shoving down. I gave them a nod, silently telling them that I would let them know if anything bad happened. Thomas might've gotten the secret message, because he released a breath, but Newt on the other hand, tried to follow me out of the room. An adult held him back, and that's the last of what I saw before the door closed, and I turned my head back towards John.

He led me through a narrow hallway, bustling with all sorts of people. But I didn't see one person without a lab coat on. They all seemed to stop what they were doing and look at John and I as we walked by, shock written all over their faces. I wondered what they were thinking. Were they wondering who I was? What this guy was doing dragging me down this long hallway without any of my friends? Because I would love to know the answer to that. Even though he said he was taking me to a bedroom, it didn't seem like that.

I tried to refrain my questions as we walked down the hallways, each one becoming less crowded with people until suddenly John and I were the only ones walking that I could see. Our steps echoed down the long hallways, and I turned around to see if anyone was following us, but nobody was.

"Hey, where the hell are we going?" I asked him, jogging a bit to keep up.

He turned his head around to look at me, his speed never decreasing, "Don't worry, we're almost there."

I stopped asking questions when he turned down another corridor, this place reminding me of the Maze in some ways. The long hallways, the echoing steps...everything just seemed so familiar.

I almost ran into his large body when he suddenly stopped at a dead end. Or what I thought was one—his body covered up the large metal door. He scanned his card on the scanner, similar to the one Jansen scanned his own card on when we first got here. The door suddenly slid open, and John cocked his head to the side, ushering me to go through. I did as I was told and took a step, examining the small room.

When I say small, it was really small. Everything was white except the floors. The bedsheets, the walls, the nightstand. Clean was the word that came to mind. I furrowed my eyebrows when I saw a weird picture above the head of the bed.

"What the..." I started to walk towards it, pulling the white piece of paper off the wall. It was a drawing done in crayons. A picture of a beach, and a boy and a girl. The boy had blonde hair, and the girl had brown hair, just like me. It looked like it was drawn by a child, but that didn't stop me from smiling at the small sentiment. This child obviously had a fascination with the beach. The other thing that was drawn in the corner was a big sun. One that almost took up a quarter of the page. In the middle of it, was a small scribbled word, like the kid had done it in a rush.

I held the paper closer to my face, like that would make it better. I could barely just make out the word...the yellow crayon making it ten times harder. There was something like an N drawn on it, but then the rest of the letters were gibberish. I pulled the paper back, now looking at the small stick figures that were drawn. The girl's eyes were brown, and I could hardly make out the blue streaks that ran up her arms. It was almost like the child didn't want to draw it in. Then, I looked at the small boy. His eyes were brown as well, and it strangely reminded me of Newt. But how would a child know about Newt?

Unless...

I gasped and dropped the paper, swiveling my head to the right to see a red inhaler placed on my nightstand, along with one single lamp.

"Wait!" I shouted as I took one long step back to the door, but just as I met eyes with John, the door slid closed.