The voices flickered in and out, on and off, as if someone was muting and unmuting his hearing and letting him in on only snippets of conversation.

Newt's eyes, glued again to the ceiling, zeroed in on the small spot of mould growing in the upper left corner of his isolation room. It had started to spread and branch out, creeping across the corners of the room like a silent assassin, leaving its mark unnoticed. If he squinted hard enough, it was almost shaped like a rabbit.

The questioning, it would appear, had stopped. Jansen hadn't come to him in two days, not since he had delivered the news about what had happened to Ada. His wrist burned where the red shoelace was. He wondered what had happened to her, if he would ever get to know.

The loneliness had started to sink in, creeping into the corners of his mind like the mould on the ceiling, spreading until it was noticeable enough to be all he could focus on. He missed the sounds of his friend's laughter, of Minho's jokes and Thomas' endless questions. He even missed Gally's playful bullying and Siggy's endless banter.

He missed his sister, Lizzie, and her braided blonde hair and wide eyes.

The voices he was hearing were coming from the vent system above his head. Just whispers of conversation, here and there, floating through and puncturing the silence. The first few days after he had realised what he was hearing, Newt would press his ear against the vent and hold his breath, hoping for any shred of news about the outside world, but there was nothing. Now, days later, he lay in silence on the bed, letting the conversation wash over him and lull him in and out of consciousness.

"And what of subject A5?"

"Jansen seems to think he's a liability. But he's just a child, I won't have him put to death like some common crank."

Subject A5, Newt thought blearily. They were talking about him again.

"What other choice do we have? We can hardly send him up to the maze."

Newt's brows twitched in concentration as he strained his ears.

"It's certainly an option."

"He's not immune, there's no point."

They were talking about sending him up into the maze, he realised bleakly. His heart dropped down into his stomach.

"The next set are due to be sent up in four days. I want him joining them, no questions asked. If Jansen wonders, tell him the orders come directly from me. He knows his place."

"Yes, Dr. Paige. I'll make the preparations for the swipe."

With a sick feeling of dread coiling in his stomach, Newt rolled onto his side, away from the vent, pressing his ear into the pillow.

Up until now, the Maze had never been anything more than a frightening nightmare on the other side of a screen, a distant monster that was close enough to traumatise but far away enough to never actually feel real to him. Even when Ada had been sent up, his limited interaction with the possibility of the maze existed within the confines of the control room and the cameras that wandered around the glade.

But now? Now the maze was a real, tangible threat, one that loomed over him like an inevitable shadow. One that would tear him away from everything he knew, every friend he had left, every source of joy he had managed to find in the world that they had been forced into.

At least he'd get to see her again, even if neither remembered.

Newt closed his eyes, letting the darkness wash over him.