ACT I   SCENE V
CASSANDRA

     NEWT USUALLY didn't dream in the Glade or if he did, he never remembered upon awakening. But that night, he dreamt of Cassandra. Her voice was soft but unmistakeable, humming a tune that dredged something buried deep in his memory. It reminded him of that day, when he first gazed into the abyss of the Maze and felt the crushing weight of despair settle at the bottom of his chest.

He pushed himself up on an elbow and peered around the dark room, over the still sleeping figures of the boys surrounding him. Her blanket was strewn on the floor where she was supposed to be and his eyes searched the room in bewilderment. His brows furrowed. A scrap of white skirt peeked from behind the bed and he suddenly felt a chill.

Her voice was hollow, like something echoing from the bottom of a well. "Hush little black bird... don't you cry... Daddy won't hear you... when you die..."

Newt carefully stood up and approached her, finding her huddled in the corner of the wall. He called out to her quietly and her shoulders tensed, melody falling dead on her lips. She slowly turned to gaze at him over her shoulder with haunted and glazed eyes. Her teeth snapped against the tip of her thumbnail, and there was blood where she had chewed around it. It reminded him of the other boys when they first arrived in the Glade. But it didn't make sense, she'd been doing just fine.

"Are you alright?" he started. "Look, I know it can be hard."

Newt almost let out a strangled yelp when Cassandra suddenly lunged at him. She seized the collar of his shirt in a vice and he felt her warm breath against his face. "They won't make it out of here alive," she whispered urgently. "And even if they do... there isn't anything to live for."

He grabbed hold of her wrist in an attempt to pry her off. "Cassandra, let go—" he hissed, only to topple backwards when she pushed him away. Newt fell onto the floor with a hard thump as she flitted towards the door. The stairs creaked beneath the patter of her bare feet as Newt stared after her speechlessly.

Minho had woken up then and looked around blearily. When his eyes landed on the empty spot next to him, he quickly sat up and scanned the room. Newt turned to him with owlish eyes.

"Where'd she go?" Minho whispered anxiously. "Newt! Did you see where she went?"

With cold realisation and dread, Newt realised that this wasn't a dream at all. "S-she went downstairs... I think... something's wrong..." he mumbled in response.

The older boy frowned in confusion. "What d'you mean?"

"She doesn't... seem herself..."

"We need to find her," Minho said as he scrambled to a stand and quickly ran out the door.

With little time to think and not knowing what was right, Newt shook Alby awake. He quickly hushed him before the Glader could curse him out and wake the others. "Something's wrong with the girl," he said.

Frown deepening, Alby got up almost immediately and the two went after Minho. They stepped out of the Homestead where a steady drizzle slowly started to seep into the cotton of their clothes. Minho was already halfway across the open field, heading in the direction of the Box. Beyond him, Cassandra stood in the downpour, white dress soaked and clinging like a burial shroud. Her arms hung limp at her sides, head tilted toward the sky, eyes wide and unblinking. Like she could see something no one else could see, as if she could see the future in the heavens.

"What's wrong with her?" Alby asked, approaching with caution.

"Shuck if I know," Newt replied. "Maybe she's sleepwalking?"

They reached Minho, who had stopped a metre away from the girl with a helpless look on his face as he turned to his friends for help. She was still singing but the melody of her song had rotted, syllables twisting out of tune like a lullaby sung by corpses.

Minho stepped forward hesitantly. "Hey, Cassandra?" he called. "What's wrong with you?"

There was uncertainty in his voice, and he took another tentative step forward. Reaching out with a hand, he seized her shoulder and shook her. She jerked out of the trance, blinking rapidly as her eyes came back into focus. Her breaths came fast and shallow. Her gaze swept across the field as if she'd just woken up from a dream before locking on theirs—and the confusion turned to something darker, like fear of herself. "How did I..."

Her eyes darted between them, then slammed shut as if blocking out a vision. "No—no, no, no!" she cried, dropping to her knees. Her fingers curled in her hair, yanking hard as she rocked forward. "It hurts—it won't stop, make it stop—!"

The scream that followed was raw, visceral, and utterly broken. It echoed throughout the Glade and split the air. Minho grabbed her hands and strands of hair were bunched between her fingers. She struggled in his grip, her face scrunched with agony. "They said they were trying to find a cure! But they lied, they lied!" she howled. "It's their fault we're doomed! It's all their fault!"

"What the shuck are you talking about?" he grunted, grappling with her.

"Minho, move!" Alby yelled. He held a spade in his hand and was striding forward.

"Alby, you can't be serious!" Minho shouted but backed away nevertheless.

"I'm sorry," he muttered, raising the spade with grim resolve. The boy moved quickly, knocking Cassandra over the head with the handle. There was a sickening thunk and she cried out before slumping over, her limp body now lying still on the grass. Minho turned to him with a horrified expression on his face as he gaped wordlessly. The air around them was thick and heavy in the silence that ensued.

"What the bloody hell was that?"

     "I knew it. I knew from the very beginning that she was trouble."

"We don't know what that was all about, we can't—"

"She's dangerous! Don't be a shuck fool!"

Cassandra recognised the voices through the dense fog of her sleep. Her entire body felt like lead and it was difficult for her to move. She couldn't even gather her thoughts into anything sensible, and the voices continued to argue.

"Look, I'm just saying, it must be a trick. Something they came up with, it has to be."

"I don't shucking care, you were there. You saw what happened!"

"We don't even know what happened!"

"Shut up, you shanks! She's waking up."

Cassandra peered blearily with heavy-lidded eyes and tried to blink the exhaustion away. Her head ached and throbbed dully. She could see Alby and Newt standing in the middle of the room looking at her over their shoulders. The older boy looked at her as if he had just seen a ghost. Someone next to the bed placed a hand on her shoulder and she knew before looking that it was Minho.

"Hey," he said quietly. "How're you feeling?"

She brushed away the strands of hair from her face and moved her head weakly to look at him. Concern was etched on his face with deep furrows and her heart skipped a beat as she instantly felt that something was wrong. She tried to sit up but her limbs protested and she groaned hoarsely from the effort. "Don't," he said. "Just lie down."

"Did something happen?" Her voice cracked like brittle paper. Her gaze slid to the other two. "Why were you arguing?"

"Cass..." Newt started but Alby interrupted him.

"What do you remember?" His voice held a hard edge. She swallowed and racked her brain for an answer but there was nothing. The last thing she remembered was closing her eyes to the sound of their snoring. She grasped at empty shadows in her mind, there was only dread and silence.

"I remember falling asleep..."

The boy stepped forward with fists clenched. "Don't play dumb, girl—we saw you."

She was taken aback by his accusation, eyes widening with confusion. "What do you mean? I fell asleep, woke up to hear you two arguing—"

"Liar!" he yelled so loudly that everybody in the room flinched.

"Alby!" Newt turned to him aghast.

Cassandra shrank away from them, withdrawing herself into a tight ball against the wall. Minho looked at her with sympathy and it made her feel even more pathetic than she already was. Her mind was reeling and fear started to creep through her veins. "What happened?" she asked again, her voice wavering. "Why are you treating me like this?"

Minho and Newt turned to glare at Alby reproachfully. He looked like he was having an internal struggle with himself. Newt then sighed and approached her, sitting on the bed to offer some solace. "Look," he started. "I don't know how else to break it to you, but... you kinda went crazy."

The ludicrous look on her face prompted him to explain further. They couldn't discern everything she said in her hysteria but none of it made much sense either. She could only stare back at them speechlessly, lost in utter disbelief. She shook her head. "No... none of this makes any sense!"

Alby suddenly left the room, stalking away and slamming the door shut behind him. She buried her face in her hands and tried to breathe through shallow gasps. Her brain was going to explode. None of it felt real. "What's wrong with me?" she asked in a muffled voice.

"Nothing's wrong with you," Minho said bitterly. "It's the Creators—those shuck-faces out there, wherever they are. They've got to be messing with your head and shucking with us at the same time."

She looked up at him with wide eyes, the thought of that scared her even more. If she was under control, that some kind of external force could propel her to do something she had no idea of... it terrified her more than anything.

"H-how do you know that?" she asked almost reluctantly.

"It happened with Nick. He got stung and went through the Changing. After that, every time he'd try to tell us something he remembered, he'd start choking himself. Absolutely no control."

Cassandra imagined that all the blood must have drained from her face. She wanted to run away, hide, throw herself off a cliff or something. But all she could do was to burrow her face in her arms and hold back her tears. She tried to focus on her breathing, on the weight of her body pressing against the wall, but the silence in the room was too loud and something darker slithered beneath it.

And then—just like the nights before—she heard it again.

A girl's voice, barely more than a whisper, yet somehow inside her skull.

"You should have died too."

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