Mae left my room about an hour later, Brenda wanted to go over their role together before we had to leave.

So now, I was left in an empty room, with an empty bed, with my empty thoughts. I didn't know whether it was the Flare, or just my mind overthinking like usual, but I couldn't feel anything.

I had told Mae I was happy, and in that time, I think I was. But as I sat on the bed, my journal laid out in front of me, opened to a fresh page, I didn't feel anything. I was numb. My pen had almost touched paper when I suddenly realized I had nothing to write. I had thoughts in my mind, I had things to say... I just didn't know how. Didn't know the words.

Sighing and looking up to the concrete ceiling, I closed my eyes, searching the depths of the endless void in my head for just one single word to write. Maybe a phrase, if I was lucky, maybe a whole passage. A couple pages like I had been writing every single day since the moment I found this empty book. But like the pages I had yet to write in, I was wordless.

A spurt of frustration caught me off guard, and I threw my journal off my lap, somewhere in the room along with my pen I chucked at the dresser. The Flare made me jumpy. My temper short. I didn't know what I expected, maybe to just feel like I had a cold, like something was itching me and I couldn't scratch it. But I got the opposite. Yes, the virus was an itch I couldn't reach inside my head to scratch, but it was more too. I had pushed the love of my life today, almost knocking her out. I wanted to rip my own head off for hurting so bad, I wanted to do the same to my arm. I wanted to rest, but as much as I laid down, it felt like I had the sudden urge to just spring into action and destroy everything in the room.

I stood up, huffing my way to the dresser where I had thrown my pen. I bent down to my knees, wincing at the stupid pain in my leg. I grabbed the pen off the ground and heaved myself back up. But instead of moving back toward the mattress and writing down useless words that were in my bloody brain, I stood there.

My arms were spread out as I stared at the old wood, no thoughts running through my mind.

Impulsively, I reached my hand up and pressed the button on the radio I had switched off when Mae left, turning it back on and waiting for music to play. I needed something. The quiet was beginning to drive the crazy part of my brain, even crazier.

I almost jumped when the sound started to play, catching me off guard from the silence that ate at my mind. I'd never heard anything like it before, so I turned up the volume just as the man decided to start signing.

His voice was soothing, the old quality of the radio making him sound scratchy. But I didn't care, for the first words he sang hit me like a bullet in the heart.

I stood still as I listened to him sing, turning up the volume even more as though I wanted his voice to visibly move through me. I needed to hear every word this man was saying, no matter if the song was total gibberish or not. Something about the fact that someone who was probably long dead knew how I felt—was able to see right through me—scared me in the best way possible.

Grabbing the radio off the dresser, I stared at it as the words made me start to breathe heavier, something that I wasn't expecting. I slowly started to limp back to the mattress, the pen I picked up still in my hand. I lowered myself down, leaning to the right to grab my journal from the end of the bed, where it had supposedly landed.

I set the radio on the mattress next to me, listening to the lyrics with a heavy heart as I placed my journal on my lap.

Most times, people's lives flash before their eyes before they're about to die. When they're falling from a building, or when the water becomes too much for their lungs to take...even when the bullet is flying straight toward them. They see their mistakes, their trials and tribulations, heartbreak, the good things too. But now as I listened to the voice of a man I didn't even know the name of, my life flashed before my eyes. I saw everything. Things that made my life worth living.

And even though the word life had a very complicated meaning behind it for me, I saw what made my life...mine.

My first time coming up in the Box, just a scared Greenie who didn't know his name. I remembered the first face I saw. My friend Alby with his comforting scowl and determined look, who helped me through so much in the years that I knew him. My first day, I remembered trying to figure out what to do, why we were all here while the small amount of guys went about their daily business, building the Homestead and places for us to live. I remembered being so frightened.

A year passed from my first day, and I was looking up at the towering walls of the Maze, running around for what felt like ages. My leg was perfectly fine, but that day was no normal run. I remembered being on the brink of a breakdown, feeling like the impending hole in my chest was beginning to eat me alive. I couldn't take it.

I remembered that day that I tried to kill myself. How when I finally let go of the ivy, I almost smiled. I felt like I was free. Free from the walls, the same routine day in and day out, the emptiness. The wind cascading down my back as I fell into what seemed like a much darker hole. Despite how much I wanted it—to leave this messed up world—something prevented me from doing it. My leg was tangled in the clutches of the ivy that caught me, and the concrete floor kept me from falling.

I didn't die.

In this life, I've hardly gotten what I wished for, and that day was an example of that fact. I wanted nothing more than to fall asleep and never wake back up. But things never went the way I intended them to.

It got a bit better after that day. And I remembered the conversation where Alby made me second in command. It seemed like bloody ages ago when he was alive, and we were laughing and bossing people around just for the fun of it. I missed him. I missed him every day.

I remembered the day that changed my life forever.

The first girl in the Glade. Not taking shit from any boy who tried to question why she was there, for she didn't know either. I remembered the times where I bit off more than I could chew with her, expecting her not to try and save me while her life was at risk. I remembered falling for her. It was almost easier than breathing. She didn't even do anything and I would find myself in awe. It was just her...nothing specific, nothing to pick out. Just her. And somehow, by coming up in the Box, she made my miserable life worth living. Her smile, her hair, her laugh. The way she talked, the way she thinks. Everything about her was mesmerizing.

She was, in my opinion, the purest form of a human on the face of the earth.

I listened to the song, remembering everything about my life that was worth remembering. Memories played like films in my head, every mistake that I had made, the journeys, the happiness, the sadness. Fright, excitement, love, lust. Doubt, worry, pride. The familiar feeling of losing everything that we had built up, whether it was a person or a plan, or a feeling. All of it.

It was my life.

And despite never getting the satisfaction of knowing what true normalcy and safety felt like, I wouldn't give my life up for anything.

My bottom lip started to quiver as the song continued, and I sat on the bed, staring at the radio as tears welled up in my eyes.

I've never really known the feeling of really crying besides last night, where I had told my fate to the love of my life. That was hard, but once she started to break down, I pulled myself together for her.

But now, I was alone. And I could cry all I wanted. Let the dam break, and let the emotions flow out of me for as long as they pleased.

So I shucking cried.

I let my chest heave with sobs as trumpets erupted through the room, the climax of the song reaching its point as I reached my emotional one as well. All of the feelings I've kept inside today, all of the pain and the guilt, they were all coming out now. I cried and cried, not even bothering to wipe the water from my eyes. I let the tears burn trails down my cheeks as I sobbed, trying to take a steady breath, but ending up crying more. My hands stayed flat on my journal, unmoving as the rest of my body rocked with cries.

There was something freeing about this. Having nobody to tell me that it was going to be okay, or that I was gonna get through this...nobody to talk to me. I enjoyed it.

As the last line of the song played, I managed to take a breath, in through my nose and out through my mouth. Tranquility washed over my body as I tilted my head up to the ceiling. The soft breeze gently blew through the open window on the other side of the room, brushing the bangs out of my eyes as I closed them, my face wet from the water that had flowed out of my tear ducts.

I didn't care that there were cells in my brain that were trying to drive me off the cliff of insanity. Right now, it was as though I was just a human. Living my own normal life on this floating rock that we all seemed to live on. It occurred to me that I was just one small, microscopic speck in this entirety of a world. But at the same time, it felt as though I was the only one. Time was just another word as I sat on the bed, my body entangled within the fluffiness of the stripped bedsheets. It didn't matter.

Ever since the day I tried to kill myself, I'd been living without a concept of time, trying to love each day like it was my last. And maybe that's the reason I was such a part of this dangerous world. Because I'd become accustomed to it.

"Yes...it was My Way."

The song finished, and I closed my eyes, taking another deep breath as I immersed myself in the feeling of total and complete freedom.

I smiled.

I stayed like that for a while, my eyes closed as the static of the radio filled the room, the song being over. I focused on my breathing, letting the peace devour me before we had to risk our lives again tonight. Another plan, another rescue mission as I deteriorated on the spot. But Minho came first. This was now my purpose, the one thing that managed to hold me together throughout this sickness. I pushed down the depressing thoughts that tried to eat me alive, replacing them with ones that I needed to get out.

Looking back down at my journal, the numbness that I was dealing with before the music and the crying was gone, washed away and replaced with fresh feelings and words on my mind. I grabbed the pen and adjusted myself into a comfortable position.

With my tongue set between my lips, I began to write.

My angel Mae...

//