SEVEN
「the consequences
of ambition」
＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚

   SYLVIA WAS KNEELING in the dirt, green cargo pants stained with hues of earth and soil. She pulled at weeds in the gardens as she tuned in and out of conversation with Newt and Quinn. Her eyes darted to the Maze doors every once and a while, distracted by the allure of them. She needed to prove to Nick and Minho that the crawl space was real. She needed to remember what the message was.

   Newt kicked her good ankle lightly, "Are you even listening to me?"

   "No." she answered truthfully.

   "Have you ever noticed how there aren't any animals here, besides the ones sent up?" he asked, or repeated, probably. He yanked a weed from next to a carrot patch. A piece of dirt bounced off his arm.

   "Yeah, sometimes."

   Quinn joined, "There's no birds or insects. Squirrels."

   "I'd love to see a bloody squirrel," Newt chuckled.

   "What about deer? I want to see a deer once we get out of here." Sylvia said.

   "I want to see a whale!" Quinn exclaimed, "They're supposed to be huge, aren't they?"

   Sylvia thought about what she knew about whales, which wasn't much, "I think so."

   It was only late morning and the sun was already beating down on them incessantly. A few Gladers had abandoned their jobs for a couple minutes and sat in the shade. Sylvia felt as if her whole body was slick with sweat.

   Her eyes darted back to the Maze doors again. She grabbed her crutches and stood from her place on the ground, beginning to move towards the Homestead.

   "Where are you going!" Newt called after her.

   She looked at him over her shoulder, "The bathroom."

   "Small bladdered shank." she heard him mumble followed by Quinn's laugh as she continued to her destination.

   As she walked, she noticed that she didn't have a shadow on the ground, despite the beaming sun overhead. There was no eclipse of light on the ground to prove that she actually stood there. She thought it was weird but decided not to dwell on it. She'd seen weirder things in her lifetime.

   It had already been three weeks since the accident. When she saw Clint and Jeff the day before, she'd asked them how much longer. They had told her for her leg to heal properly, she would need to wait at least another three or four weeks. She was so sick of waiting.

   Grabbing her harness from the Map Room and leaving her crutches there, she limped towards the west entrance. She stood in front of the doors, scanning behind her to make sure no Gladers would see her go in, and entered the Maze. Anxiety raised within her. She couldn't help but be worried that she might be attacked by a Griever again.

   Sylvia tried to start jogging and found the pain worsened if she did. It was manageable. It would be worth it. She didn't bother cutting ivy or taking notes of the passages. She knew the Maze by heart. She found more strain being put on her body than usual, taking more of her energy to run, due to not participating in any physical activity for three weeks. It made her angry that she would have to work back up to her former level of fitness.

   About five corridors in, she began to hear breathy pants and the thudding of shoes echo through the corridor. Her feet stopped moving. Minho and Kit turned the corner ahead of her and they both halted in their steps when they saw her.

   Approximately six emotions passed through Minho's facial expressions within the span of one second before his eyebrows set in a furrow and his jaw ticked.

   He marched up to her, "The hell are you doing in here?"

   "Why are you coming back so early?" she retorted.

   "Sylvia, I'm not playing games with you. Why the hell are you here?"

   Her eyes darted to Kit, who stood a few feet behind him, and then back to Minho, "I'm going to the crawl space. I need to find it."

   She moved to push past him, but he reached for her arm, dragging her back to the same spot roughly. She angrily wrenched her arm out of his grip.

   "Don't fucking touch me," she snarled.

   "You are not going out there. You'll just hurt yourself." he said, just as lowly

   "Why the hell do you care?"

   "I don't." Minho said, "But Nick will have my head on a stick if he knew I let you go."

   Sylvia raised her brows, "Let me? You have no dictation over me, whatsoever."

   He looked away once, composing himself, before repeating, "You're not going."

   Both Sylvia and Minho were aware of Kit's presence. He was pretending to study something behind the ivy but she could tell he was listening to them due to the tilt of his head.

   "Look at your fucking ankle. You think it's smart to go out there like that?" He sneered with a lowered voice, continuing with his point.

   Sylvia looked down to her ankle. The bandage and wrap that had been freshly applied yesterday was now being spotted with drops of blood. Her adrenaline and anxiety had been so high that she hadn't realized she'd popped her stitches on her leg and reopened the cuts on her ankle.

   Her expression changed as she studied her leg. How had she let it get this out of hand? Minho scrutinized the softening of her eyes as she'd realized what she'd done. In the dimness of the Maze, the bags under her eyes had become more prominent.

   "Let's go back," Minho said in a slightly different tone, but still with anger.

   She didn't meet his gaze again, simply turned and started to walk back. She tried to hide the limp in her step as she went along. She held in the winces her body longed to let out. She was going crazy, wasn't she? Sylvia had probably worsened her already bad leg. Nick was going to kill her. He'll probably lock her in her room and set someone to guard the door so she wouldn't escape, not to be trusted with her own sanity.

   The walk back was shameful and silent. Kit didn't try to lighten the mood like he usually would and she was grateful. He was probably suffocating in the awkwardness of the situation.

   When they'd returned to the Glade, Nick and Newt looked like they had been running around like headless chickens. Nick ran up to her as she entered the Glade with Minho and Kit.

   "What the hell were you thinking?" He panted exasperatedly.

   She couldn't meet his eyes, staring at a spot on his shoulder, "I needed to see the crawl space."

   "Jesus," He ran a hand through his hair, "You went all the way into Section Five?"

   "No," Minho interrupted, "I stopped her on the way back."

   Nick glanced at Minho, then Sylvia, then Minho again, "Wait, why are you back this early?"

   Sylvia, interested in the answer, turned to glance at Minho.

   Minho and Kit shared a look and Minho said, "Because I think we found something." 

   THEY HAD ALL headed to the Med-jack room instead of the Map Room, so that Sylvia could get re-stitched and re-bandaged while they discussed. Clint busied himself with Sylvia's wounds and Sylvia guiltily avoided Nick's glances her way.

   Sylvia had told Clint not to use the numbing cream for her stitches, to save it for someone who actually needed it. She wanted to feel each and every stitch being sewn into her body, to remind herself of how stupid she'd been. Clint was hesitant to comply, but when Sylvia glared fiercely at him, he quickly made his decision.

   Nick looked hopeful and excited, eyes bright and stance eased. "Alright, tell me."

   Minho took a deep breath, "I decided to switch some of the Sections and Runners."

   Sylvia decided to keep her comments to herself, as she'd already evoked enough trouble that day. But Minho had decided to make changes with the Sections and the Runners without consulting her? It made her anger begin to simmer but she kept herself composed. Clint pierced the stitching needle through her skin and her expression screwed up in pain.

   "I took Section Five today, and while we were out there, we discovered something." He continued, briefly laying his eyes on Sylvia before looking back to Nick, "We found that crawl space Sylvia was talking about."

   At this, she lifted her head to stare at Minho. Every doubt they'd all had about it, and she was right the entire time. She felt so relieved and giddy that she could smile. She did not smile, but she did look significantly less dreadful than before, "You found it?"

   Minho nodded, "And that's not all. I think the rain must have smeared whatever was written on the wall, so I couldn't really make out what it was saying. But you missed something in there." He paused for dramatic effect and then said, "Ronan had a journal. It was inside his Runner's pack and the leather bind protected the pages from getting soaked."

   He dug through his pack and handed the journal to Nick. Sylvia didn't even know that Ronan kept a journal.

   "The crawl space went a lot deeper than it initially seemed, so that's why you might have missed it." Kit spoke for the first time, directing the statement towards Sylvia, who nodded in response.

   Nick flipped through the journal silently, brows knitted together and eyes narrowed in concentration. He looked like he could be a regular boy when he was doing something like that. An academically talented school boy reading through an English assignment. Something so pleasantly normal that it eased Sylvia to think about it.

   "Let me see," She said.

   Nick looked up from the journal, expression heavy. He handed it to her. Sylvia began flipping through it.

   It started as him just writing about random things, nothing that had anything to do with the Maze. She skimmed through those first couple pages, not wanting to intrude upon his privacy. She flipped through the pages until he started to talk about the Maze.

   The entry was dated 'Day 456' and followed by 'I think I found something in the Maze today. I saw a Griever and followed it as quietly as I could until it came to Section Eight. I lost it about halfway through.'

   The next one was 'Day 484' and it said 'I've been trying to follow any Grievers I see in the Maze to see where they all go. They have to go somewhere, right? There has to be somewhere in the Maze they go to rest or whatever. I think it's in Section Eight. That's where they've all been leading me so far.'

   The one after that was 'Day 508. Today I saw a Griever jump off the Cliff. I don't know if the stupid thing killed itself, or if there's something down there, but I need to find out.'

    The final entry was dated 'Day 519' and it said 'I messed up. I stayed in the Maze overnight and I didn't tell anyone I was going to do it. They're everywhere. I'm so scared.' and then, in less legible handwriting 'I've been stung. I saw more Grievers jump over the Cliff. They got me good, stabbed me right in the stomach with those fucked up limbs of theirs. This is probably my last entry.' and finally, 'HELP ME.'

   "Oh my God..." Sylvia muttered, "This is...This is terrible."

   They all hung their heads in silence, thinking of how Ronan must have felt in those moments. In his last moments. God, it made her sick. She felt like she could throw up.

   "He stayed in there on purpose," Minho said without any real reason. Just to acknowledge his sacrifice.

   "Ronan was on to something," Nick theorized, "He knew something about the Grievers. Maybe we should pay closer attention to them."

   They all nodded in somber agreement. This was finally starting to lead somewhere.

   NICK WAS BECOMING increasingly worried about her, and after the stunt she'd pulled by going in the Maze, he locked her in her room for five days straight, only opening the door for food, visitors, and the bathroom. To put it frankly, she felt like a prisoner. He only did it because he wanted her to stay off her leg after what she did to it.

   The dark circles encapsulating her eyes became more prominent with each passing day. Nick kept asking her questions like "Are you okay?" or "You good?", to which she responded every time with, "Fine."

   He had started to notice the way her eyes darted around nervously, how she'd talk less at meals, and how she had become sort of fidgety and distracted. How she was curling into herself more and more. How sometimes she seemed to be looking at something that wasn't there. Something the rest of them couldn't see.

   It worried him.

   What Sylvia didn't tell anyone was that she had started seeing figures everywhere. She couldn't make out the details of them, they were just dark shadows conformed into a human figure. They stood in her room at night, in the kitchens, near the Blood House. They wouldn't go away and she didn't know what they meant. Were they hallucinations? A symptom of a concussion?

   Sylvia was acting so unlike herself that even the other Gladers had started to notice.

   Cole had come to her room a couple times, sitting with her and discussing the topic of the new Runners or simply drawing in his little notebook. Nick frequently came when he wanted an excuse to get away from the other Gladers and she would pretend to be mean to him for locking her in her room. Gally came once to complain about Oscar. The other times, it was the shadows.

   Shadows that came and sat in the dark corners of her room. Whispers that filled her ears but she couldn't make out the words they were saying. Light-like orbs floating outside her window or next to her desk. A strange chill that settled over her room, even when the days were hot.

   It was all very strange and unsettling. Most of the time she tried to ignore it.

   Except for right now.

   Currently, she was watching as a shadow molded into the figure of a human stared at her from the edge of her bed. She stared back, though it didn't have eyes, so she couldn't really tell who won the contest.

   She pondered about the Maze as she stared at the shadow. She wondered if Ronan had any other realizations that he didn't write down. She wished Ronan had trusted her enough to tell her about his plan. She wished Ronan hadn't died.

   The whispers started again and she rolled her eyes, knocking her head back against her headboard.

  "Sylviaaaaaa..."

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

some minho and sylvia angst this chapter how are we feeling 👀👀