ACT I  SCENE X
ALETES

   SHE WANTED nothing more than to lie in bed and never get up again. Her head pounded with the rhythm of drums—she was even starting to think that she could hear drums. It was getting louder and louder, reverberating inside her head with a steady beat as if she was a living metronome. The door opened and people in white flooded inside. They wore heavy hazard masks over their faces and each of them held a medical instrument. One of them walked towards her and bent down to place a hand on her shoulder.

"We're here to help," the person said, their voice muffled and distorted through the respiratory device.

She started to breathe harder as her eyes darted around the room and at the faceless people. Then she was strapped to a gurney, her limbs and neck tied down. They surrounded her. Someone was poking through her head and she could feel them prodding inside her brain. He made a disappointed sound behind her.

"Infested. There's nothing we can do here anymore."

The people started to move around her, packing their equipment up silently. She strained against her bindings. "W-what do you mean by that?" she asked with fear lacing her voice.

"Here, look for yourself."

Someone brought a screen up in front of her and switched it on. The smooth black surface buzzed to life and a static picture appeared on it before blinking to another image. She saw a human brain, still in its skull, grey matter encasing it and blood pooling around on its side. But what was more evident still were the numerous black worms that were burrowing themselves inside it, their bodies wriggling with grotesque urgency. She stared in cold horror.

"See? Infested."

Her eyes shut tight and she screamed, struggling against the metallic binds that were biting her skin raw. She screamed and screamed, then screamed even more. Someone was shaking her roughly, a voice trying to yell above hers but she couldn't see or hear anything other than the black creatures that were supposed to be inside her.

"OPEN YOUR EYES! CASSANDRA, OPEN YOUR EYES!"

The voice calling her name felt like a lifeline, slowly pulling her back to reality and she tore her eyelids open. Tears blurred her vision and the panic made her choke on her own sobs.

Then a face swam into view; a boy with his brawny arms wrapped tightly around her, pinning her arms to her sides. She gasped, exhaling a deep shaky breath and her mind cleared enough to digest her surroundings. They were in the Homestead. In the Glade. Footsteps stormed up the stairs outside, then a blonde boy burst through the door with fervent panic. He dropped to his knees in front of her and took her hand in his.

"Cass? You were screaming bloody murder, what happened?" he asked her anxiously.

It was Newt. She gripped his warm hand and tried to focus on it. He was real—he was real flesh and blood, sitting in front of her. The other boy who had held her finally let go and got off the bed. He stepped away and she saw Gally eyeing her warily as if she would start screaming and clawing at the walls again. She turned back to Newt, his brown eyes looked at her with concern and she swallowed.

"I'm okay," she breathed. "It was... just a nightmare."

"You pulled a chunk of your hair out before I got to you." Gally pointed. "And almost took my eyes out."

She looked around the bed and found clumps of hair littering the white sheets. Her hand automatically reached up and felt her head but it didn't seem like she had pulled too much. There wasn't a bald spot, at least, but her scalp did feel sore.

"What was the nightmare about?" Newt asked.

"There were worms in my head... eating away at my brain."

"Oh, well, that's a charming image," he commented dryly.

"It felt so real... I could feel them inside me." She shook her head with a shudder.

"Well, it's not real." Newt looked her in the eyes seriously. "You've been asleep here, in the Homestead. And there aren't any worms that crawl into our brains as far as I'm aware of."

Cassandra tried to smile but fell short. It looked like a couple of hours had passed since the wake-up and her stomach growled. She needed food, it was like an incessant itch that needed to be scratched. Cassandra looked to Gally who was still standing there.

"Glad to see you're okay again," she said.

"Okay is a subective word," the Builder retorted.

She turned to Newt with wide eyes with her lip upturned. "It really does change a person, doesn't it?"

"That's what I've been telling you shucks," the blonde retorted and stood up from the floor. "Come on, back to business as usual. You need to get some food. And you, well, we're gonna have a Gathering so you just be there."

"Can I—"

"No."

"But Newton—"

"No, Cass."

Cassandra sighed and Newt headed for the door, then turned around to look at Gally expectantly. The boy murmured that he would be right out and Cassandra turned to him curiously. She still hadn't forgotten what he looked like when he had been stung. The bulging black veins and bloodshot eyes, the way he screamed like a crazed beast. He seemed much better now, save for the dark circles under his eyes but those too would fade away in time. The only scar that would remain would be the one in his mind. Newt left the door open behind him and descended the stairs.

"I saw you," Gally started. "They had you locked up in a room. You were...you kept screaming. Like just now but somehow worse. There was some kind of metal contraption on your head and you were bleeding."

Cassandra held her hand up to stop him and looked away with a deep frown. She wasn't sure if she wanted to hear the rest of what he had to say. It sounded pretty horrifying and she didn't want to trigger any more weird scenarios from her subconscious.

"There was this boy," he went on anyway. "He was always visiting you in the room. I remembered something about a Point Zero."

She looked at him then. There was a saying that she remembered and it seemed to fit the situation at the moment. If one's an accident, two's a coincidence, then three's a pattern. There must be some kind of significance to this so-called Point Zero, if only she could just puzzle out what it was.

"Was his name Thomas?" she asked.

Gally shrugged. "I don't remember his name. But I'd recognise him if I ever saw him." There was a pause as the boy shuffled his feet uneasily. "Do you... ever remember anything else?" he asked her. "How it was before?"

"You saw it, didn't you?" She watched him carefully, saw the twitch of trepidation on his face.

"Yeah...I did. If it's true, if the world's really like that out there. I don't think I want to escape the Maze."

Cassandra frowned, not having expected that reaction. Nick had always been trying to find a way out, he never gave up on it, and being stung actually made it all the more crucial to him. But Gally was terrified. She wasn't entirely sure where she stood on the matter either, it seemed like the world out there and being stuck in the Maze were both lose-lose situations. At least they might have an actual chance out there—a shot at living their lives on their own terms. She didn't want to die in a cage.

"What do you remember?" Gally asked her again.

She paused for a moment, gathering her thoughts and putting them back into their little compartments. "I remember running," she told him. "I remember being scared and not being able to trust anyone. I remember starving and surviving. Kill or be killed."

"How can anyone be okay with taking another person's life?" He frowned at her, disturbed by the thought.

"You can when they're not a person anymore."

She looked back up at him, eyes hard as obsidians. His disbelief melted away to realisation, then confirmation. He still hadn't been able to believe the things he saw during the Changing. Whatever they were, she was sure it was as bad as the scenes she saw in her own dreams. It felt like everywhere they turned, almost certain death awaited them around every corner—something hideous that followed them wherever they went.

As if they were cursed.

   It had been two months since Cassandra sprained her ankle and she was still not allowed to go out into the Maze. Her ankle remained sore which meant she wasn't in tip-top condition to run. When Clint found out about her leaving her room the day Gally got stung, he locked her door so she'd stay confined to her bed. Literally. And would only open it for visitors or to bring her food. Minho couldn't even get Bark to keep her company in the room since the old dog preferred napping under the chicken coops and refused to budge.

That lasted for about three weeks when Cassandra tackled Clint when he came in one day and stole the key. But during that period, the Runners would come by to check on her and offer some form of entertainment. Lee managed to get his hands on blocks of wood and a carving knife. She proceeded to carve miniature Grievers for him to place in the Map Room. Minho was not particularly enthused by the sentiment and Ben begged her to stop at one point.

She made sure to steer clear of the Baggers, as the whole lot of them hated her guts more than Alby did. They would glare at her with so much malice that she was sure they plotted her death in their sleep. Especially Andy. He was always glaring.

After the fifth week, having been chased out of the kitchen by Frypan who caught her stealing a cookie for the third time, she went to the Blood House to try and get Bark, the resident dog, to play with her. But the mute canine wouldn't budge so she started pestering Newt and Zart in the gardens instead.

"Cass, you know what?" Newt said to her one day after having failed miserably at avoiding her. "No one has ever caught a beetle blade before. We tried it out once but never managed to bag those ugly critters."

"I bet you I can catch one," she declared.

"Great!" He turned her around and pointed in the direction of the Builders. "They have supplies to make a trap, but you gotta go through Gally first."

Cassandra nodded resolutely and limped her way towards the Builder's shelter. She caught Frankie, the latest Greenie, and persuaded him to help her steal some building materials. The boy walked up to Gally, unleashed her plan and starting shouting, "Cucaracha! Gally, cucaracha!"

"What the shu—" Gally started before noticing the giant cockrach on his arm. He flung his hammer into the air and started screaming in a high pitched voice.

Cassandra barely contained herself from falling into violent hysterics in order to steal the supplies she needed. Though, she didn't get very far into the Homestead when a livid Gally followed after her. "You think you're so slick... there're only a few people in this Glade who know I hate cockroaches."

He lunged forwards at her and she barely dodged him, flitting around the table in the middle of the lounge room. "Wait, I had a good reason!" she entreated while looping the boy around the furniture.

"Oh, yeah, and what's that?" he grunted as he moved a chair out of his way.

"I'm going to catch a beetle blade!" she blurted to stop him from coming any closer and potentially murdering her.

Gally paused and stared at her in disbelief. "Seriously? Are you that bored?"

She grinned with a small nod. "Yes!"

Gally stared at her suspiciously before relenting and giving in. Then he helped her build her traps over a course of two days. It only took two weeks for Cassandra to catch her first beetle blade and she limped into the middle of the Glade with the mechanical insect trapped in a glass jar. Its red light blinked angrily as it slammed its head into its prison walls. Some Gladers ran from her, some stared in awe but most of them were disgusted. She kept it on a table in the Homestead as a memento, much to Alby's chagrin.

For the next few weeks, she went back to pestering Newt in the gardens who looked about ready to dig a hole and bury himself inside it.

Each vote and comment is to soothe Newt's current misery.