Michelle 3

I wake up, in the same bed, with an empty stomach. Now is the time where we can collectively decide to panic. Three days without WICKED is I think the longest I've had alone. This distance is both welcome (the less of them the better), and incredibly frustrating. I'd rather not starve to death, so I hope they at least poke their heads in and give me something to eat.

When I sit, I manage not to crack my head off the bed above me. My head still hurts from sitting up so abruptly yesterday. I need to learn to keep myself lying down, even when I'm dreaming of an intruder.

Once I'm down, I walk into the center of the room. Everyone has gotten up and left the room except for Ella. She lies on her side, grunting. It's the quietest she's been for quite sometime, which is probably how I managed to sleep in so late.

Ella stops moaning. Her eyes flutter open, and close, and she rolls off the bed onto the ground. Spilling at my feet, like a rag doll. Then she starts shaking, and I move back against the wall. Her mouth foams and froths, and her head hits the ground over and over again. I've got no idea what is happening.

"Leo!" I feel myself trying to yell, but the sound is struggling in my throat. My arms are frozeb, gripping the wall. I didn't even touch her. "Leo!"

The door bursts open behind me, and Leo is immediately on the ground, rolling Ella onto her side. She turns back, to stare at me, before gesturing for me to leave the room.

"What happened?" Dawn leans in the door, grabbing my frozen arms and pulling me outside.

I don't know. One minute, she was just groaning, and the next, that. The twitching. Uncontrollable. Is that the Changing?

"Michelle," she snaps, staring into my eyes.

I move out of her grip, finally finding my knees have seized wobbling. In the space that we and Group B share, there is one door that has yet to open. No one tries to stop me as I walk over to it. I grab the handle, before kicking the door. It won't budge.

"Michelle, what are you doing?" Dawn asks.

I'm getting the shuck out of here. I'm going to find Gally and go somewhere where I don't have to worry about Ella, or about nightmares, or the rumbling in my stomach. For shuck's sake, the Glade would be better than being trapped in this room.

I reach into my belt, grabbing the hammer out of my pocket. I smash it into the handle, and the handle smashes back with equal force. The hammer shoots away, almost flying out of my strong grip. My knees teeter as I remain my balance. The doorknob isn't even dented.

Great, just great. What the shuck is the door even reinforced with?

"It doesn't unlock," I can hear that stupid girl behind me, Rose, over my shoulder. "I can't pick it. I don't even know that it opens. Could just be to shuck with us."

So, that's it. We're stuck now?

"Even if it could unlock, we ought to stay here," Harriet adds in. I recognize her distinct voice apart from the others. Man, I'm already starting to think Alby 2.0 is going to get on my nerves. "There ain't nothing outside but those stucking crazies."

"Cranks," Rose corrects, her voice sour. "But it's better we face them then starve to death."

I guess first impression aren't everything.

"She's got a point," this voice has the funny accent just like Newt's. I turn around and realise I don't remember the blonde girl's name. She looks over Harriet sighing. "There is no food in here."

Right, starvation. It's nothing I'm not used to at this point. We practically had run out of food by the time we left the Glade. If I can't go another couple days without eating, I'll be damned. I ignore my stomach as it rumbles in my chest. I don't know if I've even eaten since Dave died. Maybe it was before that, or maybe it was only a few days before we left.

My world feels like it has been dividing into two halves. The days before I lost Dave and Gally, and the days after. Now though, now Gally is alive, these worlds seem to be a colliding and smashing together. They are two distinct jigsaw puzzles I'm trying to fit together. The only way to make them feel connected, or at least, to try to forget about the after, is to find Gally.

"Let's stay calm," the leader offers. "We can start panicking tomorrow. Until then, there isn't anything we can do."

I roll my eyes, backing away from the door. My feet essentially scrape across the floor, until I plop myself down against the wall. This is the worst.

I can hear Dave and Gally's screams echoing in my ears. Seeing, and then not seeing. I'm still blind in one eye. He beat me blind, or I guess whoever was controlling him did. It's hard to separate Gally from WICKED. Too often, they intersect. Who was he before them? Who will he be after (if he lives that long)?

I don't know how I can escape to find him. I doubt WICKED would bring us together. They seem only keen on separating us. Not that I mind being pulled away from those boys, but I don't think I like being here any better. Especially when their Alby is still alive and breathing down my neck.

"Harriet's the worst," Rose plops down beside me. She maintains a distance, thankfully, but continues to drone on. "You're lucky you've missed her in the Glade."

I turn to look at her. She wears a sour expression and turns away from me. What's her deal anyway? Both simultaneously standoffish and chatty. I work alone.

"Reminds me of our shuck leader," I admit, gritting my teeth together. "He died."

I hope that will shut the conversation down, since as far as I'm aware I don't talk with casual acquaintances about death. Especially not when they leave a hanging implication that certain people are better off dead. Unfortunately, Rose nods as if she's becoming accustomed to the idea of death.

"Stung," I tell her. "So, he offed himself."

"Rough," she agrees, leaning her head back against the wall. "We had two go that way, after the Process."

I still don't get why they forced everyone to undergo the Changing. Seems like a bit of a hazard for me, for pretty much little gain. I don't know anyone who did who made it out unharmed in the end. Except for Thomas, but everything seems to be a shucking exception with him. It's his fault everyone is dead and gone now, anyway.

Leo walks out of the bedroom, and I'm on my feet. She huffs out air from her red cheeks. Her hair, normally in a ponytail, falls in front of her face and across her neck.

"Ella is having a seizure," she enunciates every syllable carefully.

Dawn is the first to move, darting in the bedroom after her, and then that other funny-talking girl follows her. Another girl, one I don't know, takes hold of Leo and pulls her off to the side. I watch Leo breathe, her chest heaving in and out three times, before she turns around and walks back into the bedroom.

"What's up with Ella?" Rose asks. She hasn't moved from where she sits on the ground. "Is she an epileptic?"

I shake my head. Although I don't know entirely what is up with Ella, I have my suspicions. "She remembers."

"I thought she was going through the Process now?" Rose asks.

"She is," I move forward, ditching Rose and following them into the room.

Ella lies on her side, her body twitching up and down. Bile is spewed across the carpet and causes the room to stink. Her skin has turned a dull grey, and her hair pillows around her so much its difficult to see her face.

I don't know how long we stare at her, because it seems we are helpless. There isn't much else we can do anyway. It will go on until its over.

Then it is over, and her body stills. She doesn't regain consciousness, like most do after a seizure. Maybe it's just Ella, or maybe it's the Changing, or the Process, or whatever.

"You guys can go," Leo's voice shakes. "I'll watch her."

"You need a break," Dawn doesn't suggest or offer. She instructs Leo with every syllable. "Sonya can watch her for a while, right?"

Sonya (I doubt I'll remember this blonde's name in half an hour) looks up. "I got Ella."

Dawn agrees, tugging Leo out of the room.

Sonya looks after Ella. She doesn't pick her up, and I don't know how to help without hurting. I'm not exactly someone who builds since all I do is destroy.

I leave Sonya to her work, walking out of the room. Dawn comforts Leo against a wall, stroking her messy and dirty hair. She needs to shower, desperately, since I can smell Ella's puke and sweat on her. Part of me wonders if I should go over, and the other decides against it since nothing I can do will be any help.

What's the point of this waiting? Why not just throw us into the action? The Creators must have a plan. Maybe they want to make us feel safe again, so they can rip out the ground from beneath our feet. It's not going to work on me. I don't believe in rigidity, or security.

Teresa is leaning against a wall, alone. A fire ignites inside me, and I find myself marching over to her.

"What's your deal?" I demand.

She glances at me, before pursing her lips together. "Sorry?"

"You hate me all the time, and then you stare at me while I almost get murdered saving your boyfriend from Jackson."

"He isn't my boyfriend," she shoves past me, her voice in a hush.

"Really?" I run past her, blocking her from moving forward. "Because as far as I can tell, you were pissed off when I tried to beat him in. Seems like something a girlfriend would care about."

"A lot has changed since then," she tells me. "Also, you don't need to date someone to not want their face beaten in.

Sounds fake, but okay.

Sure, stuff has changed, but also, it's all the same. My body breathes, and walks, and talks, but I have forgotten how to live. I can hear Dave screaming. His voice is in my ears, whispering away. He was there, and now he's gone. I don't want to think about that anymore. Gally lives. I never picked between them, and I am picking now because one of them lives and the other is dead and gone. Just like my thoughts of him must be.

So I guess things are different because I have made a choice, but they are ultimately the same because I am still in that moment.

How could things have changed for Teresa? She has been awake for, at an absolute max, two weeks. Time has blurred together now, so I count the days in the number of boys who have died. One the first night, one the next. How long has it been since I murdered Ben? Did I murder him? Or did he kill himself? Or, did Dawn? Maybe it was Alby, and the others who banished him, or maybe it was WICKED. I can't figure out who I hate. I can't figure out who has killed me.

"I'm glad to be away from Thomas," she tells me. "There are things Thomas did that I don't want to remember. He's a monster."

"He was working with WICKED," I agree.

"He was rotten," Teresa nods. "A kind of rotten that you can't just ignore."

We've got to stop him, before he breaks the rest of us.