the blood in your mouth

Jude damn near screams in frustration when the walls close in just time for her shoulder to slam into the solid  hard.

The Fates must fucking hate her, she decides, because this is, of course, not even close to her biggest problem.

Forehead pressed to the wall and eyes squeezed shut, she forces herself to calm the fuck down.

Nico.

Nico is on the other side of those walls.

She still isn't sure if the Gladers are enemies, allies, whatever it is. And she knows Nico can handle himself. Knows he can keep himself safe. She believes in him. She knows she doesn't have to worry, really.

Naturally, she worries.

Jude doesn't think anyone in these walls could stand a chance against Nico if it comes down it. Even so, she knows she will kill anyone who even looks at him the wrong way.

Eyes snapping open, she swivels around to inspect her surroundings. It's grim. It is very fucking grim.

What she sees is something of a passageway, thick stone walls continuing past the walls, still covered in thick ivy and vines. The corridor makes a turn in both sides a little bit away from the doors, while still continuing ahead, the corridor splitting off in three different directions.

It's a maze. A fucking maze.

Jude grits her teeth. Great. Just fucking great. Of course, this shitty situation wasn't enough. Now she has to go through a shitty rendition of the fucking Labyrinth.

She feels her whole body turn cold when she realises the train of thought running through her head.

The Labyrinth.

What's the Labyrinth?

She forces her eyes shut, pressing the  heels of her palms to her eyes, before she's turning around, and pressing both hands to the cold stone.

Nico. Nico is her top priority right now. Her only priority, really. Even surviving falls short of him.

If she cannot live with her brother, she will die with him.

With a shuddering gasp, she forces her eyes open, stifling the urge to let the tears fall and sink to her knees. She sucks in a breath of air, gritting her teeth and blinking the tears away, willing herself to think.

"Box was late today. The Doors'll be closing soon. Minho and the others'll have gotten back by now."

Jude has no fucking idea who Minho is, and she's not bothered to learn. Minho and the others'll have gotten back by now. She has no doubt that this is where Minho and the others had gotten back from, this maze. Not like there seemed to be anywhere else to go in this hellhole, she considers.

Gotten back. Alby had said it like it was normal, routine. Which means they -Minho and the others, atleast, whoever they are-  have been out here. Multiple times, Jude guesses, with how nonchalant Alby's demeanor had been. And they get back later, when night falls, or atleast by the time the sun sets. Meaning, she considers with a little light flicking on in her mind, the Doors will open.

They have to. She's not sure exactly when, but if she had to guess, her bet would be sometime in the morning, when the sun rises. Which means that all she has to do is get to morning and get Nico, so they can figure out how the Hades they're going to get out of here.

Jude is, of course, not naive enough to believe that this maze is safe. Far from it. She knows, knows there are dangers here. There would be no reason for the Doors to close at night otherwise.

She can feel it, really, reverbating through the walls, crawling up her spine, biting down on her tongue. Instinct tells her to be as quiet as possible, and she listens. With a quick twist of her ring, she feels the hilt of her Stygian sword settle soothingly in her palm.

With a start, she looks down at herself, realising that she hadn't even bothered taking notice of her attire. She's clad in a large, plain black shirt and dull cream coloured long shorts, stopping just at her knees. She takes note of the worn trainers on her feet as well. It's unfamiliar. Everything about it is unsettling, and she hates it, despite the fact that it is objectively a comfortable outfit.

Jude is relieved, however, when she catches sight of the multiple rings on both her hands, cladding her fingers in silver. She doesn't remember them, but she just knows they're hers. Her's. It's familiar, calming.

She doesn't get the time to dwell on this, however, because not a second later, her entire body goes cold and her eyes snap to the end of the corridor.

It comes from deep within the Maze, an unsettling, haunting sound, echoing off the walls and ringing in her ears. A deep whirring sound, clicking and ringing, like knives being sharpened against each other. A hollow moaning sound echoes low, with what sounds like the dragging of chains. The sound of clicking and scraping, like long nails being dragged across glass, fills the air.

This, understandably, has Jude ready to throw herself onto her sword. She stifles a yelp, biting down on her hand hard to ignore the shivers running up her arms.

She pushes herself to move, gripping her sword tight and slinking to the corner, hiding herself in the draping vines as best as she can. The whirring sound is close, and she can tell whatever's making it is right at the next  corridor.

She doesnt know what it is, but she know that if she runs out the passage, she'll find out. And she can live without the knowledge, she decides.

The noises grow louder, and Jude has to stifle a gasp when she realises whatevers making the noise is right at the end of the passage. Her view is blocked towards her right because of the vines and ivy partly covering her, which is just as well, because it's not like she wants to see whatever the fuck the creature is.

Her racing pulse and the crawling sensation in the back of her neck, however, don't let her just stand there and wait like prey. She shoots a quick prayer to Hades before she wills her sword back into a ring, and then she's grabbing onto the vines, slow and as unnoticeable as she can be, planting both feet on the wall and pulling herself up.

She grits her teeth at the ache of cramping in her arms, ignoring it to hoist herself up further. Praying that it's too dark for the creature to see her, and also hoping it's dumb as fuck, she climbs, and when she's nearly ten feet off the ground, she steels herself and turns her head, eyes dropping to the creature on the ground.

And promptly almost falls off the fucking wall.

Through a dim moonlight, the disgusting, horrific monster looks like an experiment gone wrong, part machine, part animal. Resembling a giant slug, it's body is sparsely covered in hair and glistening grotesquely as it moves, rolling along the stone floor of the Maze. Several spikes, mechanical arms, and other grotesque attachments protrude from it's slimy body, echoing moans escaping the creature.

Jude has to press her face into her arm, reaching up to hold onto the vines, to muffle the sound that escapes her. She  forces herself to stay as still as possible, biting down on her tongue so hard she tastes blood.

It's closer now. Just a few feet to her right down below.

Fuck off. Gods of Olympus, just fuck off. Leave. Don't notice me. Turn. Go the other way. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Of course, the monster does not. It rolls again, tucking the attachments on it's body further in to avoid crushing them.

Shuffling forward with a chilling moan, it pauses by the closed doors leading to the Glade. Directly below her.

Briefly, insanely, Jude considers summoning her sword and just dropping down onto the creature. She bites down on her tongue harder, pushing the thought away. She doesn't know the creature, it's weaknesses, the openings on it's body.

Before she can consider her options, she stiffens among the ivy surrounding her, blood running cold in her veins.

The whirring sounds have stopped.

In fact, the monster seem to have shut down entirely. The moaning cuts off, and so does the clicking and scraping of it's projections.

Heart in her throat and sweat on her brow, Jude waits. She has to be sure.

Turns out it's a good thing she did, because just little less than a minute later, the monster below clicks back to life, restarting the whirring and moaning. It shuffles back a little, closer to the wall, right below her, nearly ten feet below her feet.

And then it starts to climb.

####

Newt is, all things considered, entirely unsure why he's doing this. Sitting on the grass in front of the South Door of the Glade next to the Nico, the greenie, -or rather, one of the greenies- who's been sitting cross legged without moving for the past few hours, eyes never once drooping or moving from their position on the Doors.

Newt is rather impressed by the boy's determination to wait it out till morning and his unshakeable belief in his sister's -Jude's- survival. He hasn't looked away once, hands twitching in his lap everytime a Griever's shriek echoes through the Maze, and shoulders hunched, his entire body screaming with tension.

He hasn't even acknowledged Newt waiting the night out with him. Newt doesn't mind, not really. He understands, knows the feeling when someone you care about is trapped in the Maze. So, he doesn't say a word, hands around his bent knees, gaze shifting from Nico to the Doors and back again.

He knows it's futile. No one's ever survived a night out in the Maze before, and he knows that come morning, the Doors will open again, revealing stone passages and cold walls.

The girl will have died in the Maze, and there will be nothing left to show for it.

He doesn't mean to, not really, but every time a Griever's screech echoes a little louder, he finds his fists clenched, hoping dimly that the girl trapped out there is still alive. Not okay, not fine, not good, just alive. Newt isn't foolish enough to hope for one to get trapped into the Maze and come out unscathed, if at all.

####

Nico is currently losing his fucking mind. He half wishes Newt, who has been waiting for morning with him for the past few hours, would leave just so Nico can break down in peace.

Everytime the shrieks of what Newt told him hours ago were the Grievers in the Maze echo through the Glade, Nico has to restrain himself from throwing himself at the Doors and screaming his throat raw.

He hates himself for it, really. For being unable to reach her, for pausing when the walls started moving, back when they were running for the Doors. It was just a few seconds, but it's what gave Alby the edge to reach him, to stop him.

If he just hadn't stopped, maybe he would've made it. Would've made it through with Jude. He's thought about it enough. Either be stuck here in the questionable safety of the Glade, or be trapped out in the Maze with Jude.

If he could do it all over again, he knows in a heartbeat he'd choose to be locked out there with Jude.

And if they'd both made it through together. . . well, if they'd die, they'd do that together too.