The first loop.
The Box jolts with a guttural clank.
Your heart races—panic instinctive, primal. You claw at the walls, cold and damp with rust, but there’s no way out. Just darkness, that mechanical whine rising like a scream in your ears, until—
Light. Too much of it. Blinding.
Then a shadow overhead, blurry in the haze. A face, upside-down and golden in the sun.
“Bloody hell. Look at you.”
He crouches over the edge, blond hair tousled, eyes like warm honey in the sun. He says something else—calls you “Greenie,” grins like he’s trying to set you at ease. You’re shaking too hard to speak.
Strong fingers wrap around your wrist. He hauls you out like it’s nothing. You collapse into a world of noise and boys and sky, dizzy and cold, but he doesn’t let go.
He steadies you by the elbow and meets your eyes.
"Alright love, you’re safe now. I’ve got you.”
You believed him, then.
Because then, you didn’t know the sound of him dying yet.
Loop 34 crashes through you like thunder.
You know it now.
You know the sound of his voice gurgling with blood. You know the color of panic in his eyes when he realizes you’re not going to leave him—even if it kills you, too.
You’ve been here before.
The Maze stretches around you like a noose, night already fallen, grievers shrieking in the dark. You’d barely dragged him into a hidden crevice behind a jagged wall segment. He’s bleeding—bad—but it’s not fatal. Not this time. If you can keep him awake. If you can keep him here.
You’re holding him again, only now it’s real—not memory. Not flashback. The wound in his side is shallow compared to the others he’s taken in previous loops, but the blood is still there. Still too much.
You’ve tied off the makeshift bandage with shaking hands. His head rests in your lap, breath ragged. His fingers twitch near yours. His pulse is rapid and weak. You count every second. He can’t sleep. He can’t.
You plead, brushing hair from his forehead. Begging him to open his eyes and talk to you, even for a bit.
His lashes flutter. His voice is a cracked whisper.
“You’re crying.”
You hadn’t realized. You wipe your cheeks with the back of your hand, trembling. His hand brushes yours, weak but instinctive.
“Don’t look at me like that.” He pause.
“Like you’ve…already lost me.”
You don’t answer.
Because how do you tell someone you’ve watched them die thirty-three times?
How do you say you’ve held their hand through every version of goodbye?
Over and Over again.
You promised yourself you wouldn’t. Not after the last time. Loop 52.
You never let yourself have it before. Too dangerous. Too selfish.
But that night, he was different.
Softer. Quieter. Sitting with you at the edge of the Glade, watching the fire crackle low. The Maze walls tall and still in the dark, and Newt beside you—shoulder brushing yours, eyes full of something tender and unspoken.
He laughed at something you said, leaned a little closer under the moonlight, eyes softer than you remembered, like some part of him was pulling toward you even without knowing why.
You don’t remember what you said that made him laugh. But when he did, the sound wrapped around your ribs like sunlight.
And then he looked at you.
Not like a stranger. Not like a leader. But like someone remembering.
You leaned in and so did he.
The kiss was soft. Careful. Fragile, like something borrowed from a better world.
You didn’t speak after. Just sat there in silence, hands laced in the grass between you.
And it felt like home.
But you knew it wouldn’t last.
The next morning, the Box would take you again. The loop would reset.
Everything would vanish again.