ZERO
The Ashes of Us
❤️‍🔥
❪ tw: strong language, violence, drugging, use of restraints, mentions of guns, and mentions of death ❫

3 YEARS AGO ...

     Lottie wasn't the easiest kid to keep in line. She was the type to fight. To kick and scream until her throat was raw and she couldn't scream anymore. It got to the point where they barely knew what to do with her. That wasn't until they had the idea to begin the maze trials. Lottie had gotten into trouble and hadn't seen her best friend Minho in a week and a half. She was sleeping in a room with one twin bed and a handcuff around her left wrist (the other side was cuffed to the headboard). Minho had been observing and listening a lot and found a way to get to Lottie's room through the vents. He was now slowly walking up to her bed clutching keys in his fist. He clutched them with all his strength to the point where the veins in his arm popped because he didn't want to make a sound.

Her head rested on top of her handcuffed arm and Minho cringed at how uncomfortable she looked and he didn't understand how she could've possibly fallen asleep like that. He squatted down in front of her and placed his hand gently on her waist. "Lottie." He whispered as he shook her. No response. Minho scoffed because he felt like it would be a chore to wake her up. He always told her that she slept like she was dead. "Lottie, wake up." He spoke a little closer to her ear.

Lottie breathed in and started shuffling around. Minho watched as her eyes fluttered open. "Minho?" She mumbled—squinting. She knew his voice like the back of her hand and even though it felt like she was speaking into the darkness, she still knew it was him.

His hand never left her waist and he was now rubbing his thumb against the soft material of her T-shirt. "Hey." He spoke softly, smiling.

Minho reached his hand out to turn on her lamp as she lifted herself from her pillow—squinting her eyes at the burst of light. She looked around the room now noticing the open vent. "Did you come through my vent?" She looked back at Minho.

Minho nodded. "There's someone down the hall, I had to." He explained.

Lottie took a breath, looking at the blank wall in front of her bed. "What are you doing here?" Her head turned to him.

    "I need to talk to you." There was desperation in his voice that sounded so unfamiliar to Lottie. Minho never seemed desperate.

     "You know you can't be in here." Lottie continued to argue.

     "And you know I don't care." Minho opened his fist and walked back over to her—holding the keys between his thumb and middle finger. "Sit up." He instructed.

    Lottie looked down at the keys in his hand. "Where did you get that?"

     "Stole it," Minho spoke with a slight chuckle.

    "Minho," Lottie spoke in a scolding tone.

    Minho knew Lottie would steal anything if she had the opportunity so her saying that made him roll his eyes. "Just put it back in later so they don't get suspicious." He grabbed her left hand gently and unlocked the handcuffs.

     The skin around Lottie's wrist was stained a deep crimson color and she had been restrained for so long that she adapted to the pain. Now every time she touched her wrist she winced. Minho sat down next to her and looked down at his lap thinking about how he should start this conversation. "You know how you said that you felt like something really bad was gonna happen?"

     The tone in Minho's voice dripped with the bitterness of fear. "Yeah . . ." Lottie looked over at him and she noticed his leg bouncing. Minho always had this tough demeanor about him so seeing him make such anxious movements injected fear into Lottie's bloodstream. "Minho, what's wrong?"

     Minho ran his hand across his scalp. "I saw something . . . about a month ago."

    Lottie scoffed. "Why are you telling me now?"

     "I don't know." Minho shrugged—not making any eye contact with her. He did know why he didn't tell her. He was scared. "Plus, I wanted to tell you a while ago but then they locked you in your room."

     "What'd you see?"

     "This kid . . ." Minho's voice shook as the memory made its way back into his mind. He remembered looking through the little window in his bedroom door. It was early in the morning and all of his roommates were still sleeping. There were guards dragging a kid out of the room across from his. He had spoken to him a few times but he couldn't remember his name for the life of him. "I don't know what they were doing to him but he was screaming then they put something in his neck and he wasn't anymore."

    "Is he dead?" Lottie didn't understand why anyone here did what they did but she knew they were taking advantage of them.

    "I don't know. I just saw them pick him up and take him somewhere and I haven't seen him since. We know him. He had um—blonde hair. British accent."

     Minho wasn't the best at describing people but Lottie quickly understood. "Newt?"

     "Yeah, Newt." Minho nodded. "And I heard them talking about something called Phase One."

     "Phase One? Like some weird experiment?"

     "Maybe." It was silent for a second and Lottie stared at Minho because it looked like he had more on his mind. "But it wasn't just him. After that—I noticed other people were missing. What if . . ."

     Minho finally looked at Lottie in her eyes but everything about the look she was giving him was cold and angry. "What?" Her tone shifted. It was a tone that gave Minho a few goosebumps.

     "W-What if it happens to us?"

     Lottie hated when Minho asked her stupid questions and this was something that she categorized as a stupid question. "Nothing's gonna happen to us."

     Minho and Lottie always fantasized about breaking out and getting some apartment together. They knew it would never happen because of the flare and they didn't even know how the world looked anymore but Lottie wanted to believe it would happen. "Lottie, don't be an idiot." Minho raised his voice and watched as Lottie moved her arm that was resting next to his. "Sorry. I just wanted to see you again. You know if . . . something happens." Lottie didn't speak, she just looked at him. "You never know how long they'll keep you in here."

    "Minho, we'll be fine," Lottie assured. A few seconds later she heard a sniffle coming from Minho and every muscle in her body softened. "Come here." Lottie moved closer to him and Minho immediately wrapped his arms around her waist—burying his head in her neck. All he could smell was the rose scent of the bar soap they put in the girls' bathroom. Lottie hated it but Minho didn't mind. Without thinking, she let her lips touch his cheek. The feeling of her lips sent Minho into orbit and the sensation bruised his skin. Bruising was a type of pain no one enjoyed but a bruise from Lottie was a bruise that Minho would cherish till the day he died. She wrapped her arms around him—hugging him tightly but Minho pulled away a few seconds later, staring into her eyes.

    Being in this place felt like prison to Lottie. Every morning she woke up from horrifying nightmares of her childhood and rocked herself like her mother never did. She always felt like the ground beneath her was constantly shaking and she didn't know how to make it stop and screaming never seemed to help. Screaming also didn't silence the bad thoughts that crossed her mind when she was alone at night. It was like as soon as Minho looked into her eyes the shaking stopped and there was no reason to scream anymore. It felt like there was a magnet pulling them closer together and forcing their lips to touch. Neither of them had ever experienced it before but it was like they knew exactly what to do. Minho slid his hand up to pull Lottie even closer as their lips slowly moved against each other. His eyebrows furrowed together and he swore he was hearing footsteps outside of her door. He slowly pulled away and gently opened his eyes. "Did you hear that?"

     Minho turned his head to the door and they both stayed silent and now they were both hearing footsteps. "Shit." They jumped up from the bed and Minho forced the keys into Lottie's palm.

    "Put it under your pillow." Lottie nodded in response and Minho ran back into the vent.

     "Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!" Lottie whisper-yelled as she shoved the keys under the pillow and ran to close the vent back up.

     The footsteps sounded like they were getting closer and Lottie frantically jumped in her bed and put the handcuff back around her wrist. When she heard the sound of her doorknob jiggling she let her head fall to her pillow and acted like she was sleeping. There was a guard now standing in her doorway and he noticed that her lamp was on but didn't think anything of it. He carefully closed the door and grabbed the walkie-talkie from his pocket. "Subject A9 is clear."

      It was morning now and Lottie had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach that she couldn't explain. She slowly lifted her head off the pillow and looked up at the clock on the wall in front of her. It was pretty early in the morning only 7 AM and nobody was even let out of their rooms till nine. Lottie reached under her pillow and slowly brought the keys she left under there into her hand and quickly broke her left hand free. Something in her told her to look at the keys and she noticed that there were four different ones.

      Her eyes switched from the door back down to the keys and she slowly moved off the bed. She flinched at the cold floor hitting her bare feet before she stood up and tiptoed over to the door. She tried every lock and by the time she got to the third one she didn't think any of them were made to open the doors. Until she got to the last one. The door clicked and her heart dropped. "Shit." She let out a breath.

     She closed the door and was met with the emptiness of the hallway. She tried to steady her breathing as she walked. She didn't know where she was going, she just walked. She made her way into a hall that was filled with rooms that looked like labs. Most of them were but she stood still when she heard screaming in the distance that sounded like it was coming from a boy. The room was at the end of the long hallway and as she got closer to it the sound intensified then it suddenly stopped completely. She stopped in front of the window and immediately recognized the boy lying in the hospital bed as Minho. He was chained to it and a doctor was standing over him. "What are you doing to him!?" Everyone in the room looked over at her. Her hair stuck up in different directions and her cheeks were decorated with tears. Tears that continued to flow.

     One of the doctors in the room recognized her and walked out the door. "Well, you've gone far from your room." Her tone was sweet yet bitter. "Guard!"

      All Lottie remembered about the rest of this moment was crying and screaming Minho's name before everything went dark.

PRESENT DAY
—2 hours till maze insertion...

     Years went by and it got even harder for the staff at WCKD to get Lottie to do anything. Ever since she saw Minho unconscious she got even more intense and violent and her being on the brink of adulthood didn't help. Inputting Lottie into the maze trials was always a part of the plan but they were waiting for the perfect time.

     The door to Lottie's room locked from the outside and every morning she had to wait for a guard to let her out. She sat up in bed—arms crossed over her chest as she stared blankly at the wall. All Lottie has ever been able to think about when she was alone was Minho and every other friend she's lost over the past three years. But, her head was mostly filled with thoughts of Minho. A few nights ago—she got bored and all she had was a pencil and paper so she wrote until it felt like her hand would fall off and the paper laid beside her. She avoided looking at it as if it were a person.

     She had stared at the paper for so long that the words looked like they were falling off the page and crumbling on the ground. She didn't see any purpose in writing it anyway because there was no way that the person that she wanted to read could.

Dear Minho,

I thought that after three years the burning achy feeling that I'd get when I thought of you would go away but it only gets worse. I still hear your voice echoing in my head. I still remember how I laughed whenever you smiled because of the uneven dimples that would spread across your cheeks and the annoying amount of time you spent working out. But something I'm sure I'll never forget is how tight I held you that night like you would slip out of my arms or the way I screamed the next day. You'll never see this but, a part of me hopes I'll see you again.

Love, Lottie

     Lottie's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the door unlocking and she quickly folded the paper and shoved it in the pocket of her hoodie. "Up and at 'em." The guard stated as he walked over to Lottie's side.

     He grabbed both of her wrists wrapping the cold metal around them. This was an everyday thing for Lottie, her hands were rarely ever free. "Handcuffing me before noon?" Lottie's voice didn't have any emotion left in it.

     "We're taking a field trip today." His words made Lottie perk up.

      "The hell is that supposed to mean?" She questioned.

      The guard gave her a blank look. "Just stay quiet and do what you're told. For once." He grabbed her arm, pulling her up from the bed.

     "Watch it!" Lottie snapped at him. When she walked out into the hallway she almost bumped into the other guard that was standing outside waiting for them. As she looked up at him—he roughly grabbed her right arm and yanked her to walk in front of him. "Let go of me! I don't need help walking." She moved her arms in an attempt to elbow him but he just pushed her toward and let go of her arm. One of the guards moved to walk in front of her and she was starting to get suspicious. Usually, only one guard would come in and take her to get breakfast and they were walking in a completely different route. Then she remembered what the guard said to her. "Where are you taking me?" When she got no response from either of them—anger rushed through her veins. It was safe to say that Lottie was quick-tempered. "Huh!? Are you assholes deaf!?" She raised her voice.

     The guard in front of her swiftly turned around and took a step closer to her. "Didn't I tell you to keep quiet?" Lottie didn't say a word, she just stared into the darkness that was his helmet. "Why don't you come here and walk with me, huh?" He slapped his hand against her back and continued walking.

    Lottie had stayed silent the entire time and they were now guiding her into a room with what looked like a hospital bed and machines. One of the guards instructed her to sit in the chair by the door and she surprisingly listened. When she finally started to look around the room she noticed Janson standing across the room from her which made her sigh. "Good morning Lottie." Janson greeted her with a smile.

     "No mornings are good when I'm speaking to you." Lottie countered. "What do you want?"

     "You know—at first I had no idea what to do with you. You used to listen when you were younger but, you were like this ever since you were thirteen." Janson slowly walked closer to her as he spoke. He paused his speech and squatted down in front of her so they were at eye level. "You're a rotten egg, Lottie."

     Lottie stared at him blankly. Lottie felt like she hadn't felt any emotions in years everything in her felt numb. "Thanks for the compliment." She leaned back in the chair.

     Janson chuckled before he continued. "You do nothing but cause trouble and obviously keeping you away doesn't do much. But you've proven that you can handle extreme situations."

     "So what? You're just gonna do to me what you did to Minho and all those other kids? Where the hell did you put them!?" Janson tilted his head at her with a cocky smirk on his face. But, that expression was brutally stripped from him when Lottie moved closer to him—letting the spit from her mouth slam against his cheek. "You're pathetic." Lottie's throat grumbled when she spoke and she sounded like an animal. She sounded like she would grow a set of razor-sharp teeth and rip Janson to shreds.

      Janson slowly stepped away from her as he wiped his cheek clean with his thumb. Lottie watched as he stared down at his thumb. "She'll start resisting. Put her to sleep." Janson instructed the guards.

      The same guards that took Lottie out of her room began marching toward her. One of them held her down and she looked at the syringe in the other guard's hand with wide eyes. "No!" She screamed, kicking her feet around. She tried to escape but the more she moved around the harder the guard pushed her into the chair. "Get that away from me!" Her screams continued and Janson looked over at the large window in the wall. Thomas had been outside watching everything and the second he made eye contact with Janson, Lottie's screams stopped.

       Janson didn't have to look at her to know that she was passed out so—he continued speaking to the guards as he continued to look at Thomas. "Get her up on the table and ready for the water."

KARISSA SPEAKS!

—finally sat down and forced myself to finish this

—minho and lottie's backstory makes me bawl

—i hope this doesn't end up flopping bc i lovee this story