{0.8}

                                    

                                          
Disclaimer:
                          
Minho: The floor is lava!!
Thomas: [lays on ground] Good.
                          
-✼-
                          
I should have known. I should have known. I should have known. 
                          
The new mantra reverberated in my eardrums until I almost felt sick. It drove guilt deeper and deeper into my chest. Why had I just stood there like an idiot while Newt was being carried away? Why had I let him be taken?
                          
The more rational part of me tried to reason that even if I did save Newt, the team of people would have called for backup anyways. We would have had to find a new place to hide. But the side that was stocked up with grief was winning.
                          
I clutched the note he had left in one hand, the other slightly outstretched with my fingers awkwardly splayed out. I didn't know what to do with it. I didn't know what to do with my entire body. One second I was standing and the next I had sunk against the wall of the Berg and to the floor. I didn't remember beginning to cry, but soon the sobs were uncontrollable. I was choking on them. Tears poured from my eyes with reckless abandon; it felt like I was being torn up from the inside.
                          
Somehow, even through impaired vision, I managed to read Newt's message.
                          
They got inside somehow. They're taking me to live with the other Cranks.
                          
It's for the best. Thanks for being my friends and take care of Dylan.
                          
Goodbye.
                          
Goodbye. That word hit me the hardest. It couldn't be goodbye. That word suggested it was indefinite, that we truly would never see each other again. I refused for that to be the truth.
                          
But even then, as I sat crumpled to the ground, I began to question it. When would Thomas and the others get back? Would they, or was I stuck in the Berg forever? Would the people come back for me?
                          
Another vital piece of information stabbed at me. I was immune. My brain had successfully kept the Flare out somehow, preventing it from rooting itself there. So much information was hitting me at once that I felt an overwhelming sense of agony crash into me. I cried out, a gasping, helpless sound that I didn't even know I could make.
                          
I hated feeling useless, and I had never felt like it more than at that moment.
                          
Hours passed. Maybe it was minutes. There was nothing to tell me how much time had passed in the Berg. I just knew it was long enough for the skin under my eyes to become sensitive and there were no more tears left in me. I was making hiccuping noises instead of sobs. I had never seemed so lost, so alone.
                          
Alone. I flinched just thinking about the word, so I tried not to dwell on it too much. It would only throw my emotions into even more turmoil than they already were. Maybe even another panic attack could ensue, and without anyone to calm me down...
                          
My hands shook violently. Somewhere along the line, I had crumbled the note into my fist. I opened it and let the ball of paper fall to the floor. Then, with my other hand, I reached up to my left ear and felt for the hearing aid. My fingers fumbled for the dial on the side until they felt the ridges on it and I could mute the volume. There was no need for it right now. What was there to hear?
                          
Still trembling, my body moved on its own as I curled into a ball on the floor. My exhausted eyes began to close before I knew it. And I was out like a light.
                          
"Wait, hold on. You said you remember?"
                          
"That is what I said, yes."
                          
The wide-eyed, fourteen-year-old Minho sitting in front of me blinked in shock. He was about six months older than me, making me thirteen. My back hunched against the vent, one of our favorite hiding spots in the W.I.C.K.E.D facility. It was the only place without security cameras.