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His heartbeat thumps in his skull, pressing against the bone and trying to force its way out. Minho does not let it. He keeps his eyes firmly fixed on the ceiling, absorbed by its murky mix of blue and grey.
With his mouth parched with dryness, he debates climbing down and heading to the bathroom to splash some water in his face, but also doesn't want to be a pain in the ass and wake the others up.
Stiffly, he rolls onto his side, then his front. He uses his hands to grip onto the cold safety bar, the metal freezing his hands like ice. Balancing, he pushes his front over it, dangling a bit to take a look at Frypan, who is resting in the bunk beneath him.
Fry lays with his arms behind his head, legs crossed. It almost draws a laugh from Minho, seeing him look so relaxed. Shifting back onto the mattress, Minho rubs his eyes tiredly before beginning his descent down the creaking ladder. Each step threatens to send him crashing to the ground if he doesn't distribute his weight evenly enough.
Once both of his feet are on the ground, concrete and solid — almost as if he is stood back inside the Maze again — Minho squints in the darkness, eyes finding the door to the room's attached bathroom. He takes each stride lightly so he creates little to no sound, and holds his chin up with instinctual pride flowing through his veins.
However, it doesn't take long until the reality of being unseen prickles at his skin, brushing over his spine and trailing all over his sore muscles. He hasn't even reached the doorway yet when he turns around, guarded.
Each life still with them, each Glader lucky enough to remain, lays fast asleep in their bed. Soft snores echo through this chamber, rooting Minho's feet to the ground like an anchor. Winston is closest to him, so is the clearest to look upon in the darkness. The Slicer is curled up on his mattress, brows furrowed and lips moving slightly as if he is agitated by something. No sound leaves him.
Minho looks to Newt next. On a bottom bunk also, because… well, it's a story Minho doesn't exactly reminisce on. Just like Winston, he seems to be fighting his dreams away too. Taken by exhaustion, but forbidden to rest.
Noting all of this, Minho finally — finally lets his shoulders drop. It isn't much, but at the same time, he feels his carefully sewn together composure pull at tight threads, shaking as his aching heart yearns to tether and snap.
Without wasting a second more of his time, Minho turns to face the bathroom doorway again and creeps inside. No eyes linger here, no sharp gazes that expect so much from him even as he gives too little. His hands fly towards one of the sinks, cool beneath his calloused palms. With shaking fingers, he cranks down one of the tap levers and cups his hands, allowing freezing water to pool in their hold.
He throws this on his face, again, and again, and again, until he is gasping for breath. His hands come down to the sink's porcelain edge, knuckles white as he grips the basin tightly. Shoulders hunched over now, Minho looks slowly upwards at the mirror before him. The water whistles quietly, still running.
Minho stares at himself blankly, watching droplets of clear and cold liquid rain down from his hair and nose. They glisten under the reflection of the security lights, with sit in slim strips on the roof all around, dimly giving off a humming glow and trailing a path towards the door.
And, what he almost misses, is the hunger his own gaze grips onto as if he has nothing left but that clawing around inside of him. Pulsing within his chest. Lurking inside of his stomach. Readying itself in the twitch his fingers carry with them.
That damn twitch, the reason the spear slipped from his grasp so easily.
It was a good shot. That's what Gally would have said if it wasn't him the spear had buried itself inside. It was a good shot.
Holding a couple of fingers up, Minho's eyes swim over the thick layer of grime beneath his nails. Try as he might in the shower the other day, he wasn't able to remove practically any of the blood and grit. He isn't aware who the blood even belongs to.
A groan leaks from the back of his throat, and Minho can't pinpoint the cause of it. Guilts seems to be the likely answer, as he thinks of Chuck and the noise comes again. It is almost animal like, a quiet vocalisation of all he is feeling.
Except, what he is feeling goes deeper than that. Saying guilt and moving on wouldn't be right. Hurt is more likely the secondary emotion he can clearly envision stirring in the depths of his eyes. Minho holds his own stare as if breaking away will signal the loss of this raging battle.
His fingers tighten on the sink's edge when movement blurs behind him. Shadows melt and twist into something disgusting and almost incomprehensible. Almost.
Nerves alight, Minho finds that his hands are now fused with the basin, him startled by being unable to relax his fingers and pull away from it. His reflection watches him back, as well as another face, blue and distorted. "Your fault." It sings painfully, ghosting up against his ear.
Suppressing a shiver, Minho blinks a few times in the hopes of erasing this monster, which works for a moment, but it seeps back into his head even louder and ghoul-like than before. "Listen to me.." It whispers, "Accept the blame. It was all you. I thought you were going to save me, to free me—"
"You didn't want to be shucking saved!" Minho spits back at it, lungs trembling as he fights to take in oxygen. It feels like there is a hand clamped around his throat, adding pressure, squeezing.
"Oh, but I did. Couldn't you see? I was just as scared as everyone else there—"
"Shut up!" Minho hunches further over the sink, bile rising terribly in his throat, and tightly shuts his eyes. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"
"Is that why you killed me? To shut me up?"
Minho's body jerks into motion, a hand flying up to his mouth. It doesn't hold back the vomit that drips out of his agape jaw, and he ends up releasing all of the food given to him in recent hours down into the basin. His nose burns, eyes too, and he gags a couple more times, throwing up whatever he can.
His whole body is racked with coughs, legs shaking and partially unable to keep holding his weight. Minho presses as much of himself against the basin as possible, trying to maintain an upright position as he collects himself. The vomit swirls down the drain, water mixing with it disgustingly.
"Minho?"
Minho gasps in fright, and his eyes catch on Gally's face in the mirror for the final time. The boy vanishes back into the darkness behind, and Minho spins to look at the silhouette in the doorway. His front is cast in shadow, back illuminated partially by the emergency lights.
"What are you doing?"
Newt's voice, still carrying the odd twinge of an accent warped but persisting through the years, speaks to him. He is hesitant, one hand coming up to rest on the doorframe.
Guilt — it's always guilt, always will be guilt, the same guilt that has been thrust upon him by actions no fault of his — is the first thing on Minho's mind as he readjusts to reality, and the fact he must have awoken Newt. "Nothing." Minho frowns, defensiveness creeping back up his outer shell like those vines on the Maze walls.
Newt rests against the doorframe for a beat more, then his arms slither and cross over his chest. He stands there studying Minho, eyebrow raised just slightly. Minho can't help but feel bitter at him for that — the condescending way of his stance and his gaze that never borders ferocity, never, but could very well do so.
It makes Minho feel pitied, but worst of all, he feels weak underneath it. The agitation crawls up his skin similarly to his defences and his pupils narrow and shrink on Newt. A hypocrite at the core. A boy Minho has seen with his very own eyes not just emotionally tangled up in his own vines of desperation and regret, but physically too. Klunk, that image will forever be burned into his mind.
"Are ya going back to bed? Or just waitin' here til morning?" Newt asks carefully, tongue skimming over his bottom lip as Minho wipes at his mouth with his wrist and the back of his hand, "Sleeping is good for the body."
"I know that." Minho cuts in, but he doesn't end up sounding annoyed or anything like he had intended. His voice holds zero strength. Not even a mere ounce of it. It hasn't since he watched Gally's legs give out. "I know that." He repeats himself, quieter. Why? He doesn't know.
Newt's stern body language eases a fraction, seeming to understand Minho's pent up frustration. He sighs, dropping his arms loosely to his sides, "Do you wanna tell me what's wrong?"
"No. Nothing's wrong."
The tap is still hissing as water collects in the basin. The drain can't seem to keep up with the oncoming demand, and liquid starts collecting gradually in the sink.
"Minho, you're sopping wet and it's the middle of the night. I woke up hearin' you talk to yourself. But, you're insisting nothin' is wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong." Minho clenches his jaw and fists in unison. He doesn't understand Newt, never has in all honestly. That drew them together at one point in time, the kindling of a thing close to a shared brotherhood boiling there. The embers scattered in recent times, though. That doesn't mean Minho wouldn't die for Newt, for he would — a hundred times over. It just means that distance wedged itself between them on a random day, and neither of them ever found the time to close the gap.
Yet, seeing Newt stood here as a wall, something impenetrable and immovable, it eases Minho in a weird way. At least he's aware that if he ever falls, there will be something there to catch him, as hard and uncomfortable as that landing may turn out for him.
"Just be thankful it's me that your cussin' disturbed," Newt snorts, stepping backwards, "and not Tommy, or someone else. They'd be interrigatin' you, and you know it."
"Sure." Minho mumbles, tension disintegrating from each of his limbs. He remains still briefly, but like always he needs to move to survive. Like a shark, if you will. After sticking an arm out and shutting off the water, millimetres away from overflowing in the sink, Minho pushes past Newt gently, brushing against him and feeling the warmth his friend gives off sticking to him as he continues moving away, back towards his bunk.