Chapter 16: Illness

"You alright, Max? You're looking kinda pale," Roz asked. Her and Max had just thrown a couple boys who'd taken a bet in who could chop the most wood a bit too far, resulting in two very angry, splinter riddled boys.

"Yeah, I'm just," Max stood up straight, winced, and rubbed his forehead, "think I'm coming down with something."

Roz frowned, peering at him. In addition to his unusually pale skin, he also looked tired, and slightly sweaty. "Let's go and see Jeff. I've gotta see if he can pull all the splinters outta these shanks anyway," she nodded to the boys in the Slammer, both of whom were now slumped on the floor, looking rather moody.

When her and Max entered the Med-jack hut, they were surprised to see about five other boys spread out across the cots. Jeff looked up as they entered, and sighed.

"Oh, no, not you two as well," he muttered.

"Uh, what?" Roz asked. Jeff wiped his hands on a towel and came over to them, tossing a bottle of painkillers over to one of the cots.

"Shanks are getting sick left right and centre. Nothin' serious so far but obviously something's spreading across this shuck Glade like no one's business." He explained. Roz looked over the boys. They all looked pale and tired. A few of them were complaining quietly to themselves.

"Uh, no Max is sick but not me. I just needed someone to go over to the Slammer; couple slintheads got into a fight around wood. Need the splinters taken out."

Jeff nodded, and looked over his shoulder. "Clint! You're needed over by the Slammer." The new Med-jack, a boy who had come up in the box a couple of months ago, popped up from behind a table, and hurried over to them. Max was sent to sit on a cot, and Roz took Clint over to the Slammer. She left him to deal with the splinter-riddled Builders, and made her way over to Gally, asking if she could help make up the numbers he'd lost.

"Yeah sure, we could use some help nailing all this crap together," he gestured around, "those two shanks in the Slammer and another one's off in the Med-jack hut. It's ridiculous."

"Why's everyone suddenly getting ill?" Roz asked. Gally shrugged.

"Dunno, but I tell ya, if it happens to me, I ain't having it."

"You can't decide whether you catch a bug or not, Gally," Roz said, rolling her eyes. He looked at her and rose an eyebrow.

"You might not be able to," he said, "but I sure as hell can. And will."

Roz snorted at his cocky grin, before snatching the hammer he was holding out of his hands and getting to work.

Within a few days, about a quarter of the Gladers had been struck by the illness. The Homestead had become a temporary secondary Med-jack hut, with both Clint and Jeff, both of whom were thankfully still healthy, running like headless chickens between the two buildings.

Roz sat on the ground, carving away at her newest wooden animal, next to where Newt was gearing up to go into the Maze for the day, slipping on the new running shoes the Runners had requested the previous week. He stumbled slightly, squeezed his eyes shut, before opening them and grimacing.

"Alright, mate?" Roz asked, looking up at him, concerned.

"Yeeeeaaahhh," he replied, running a hand through his hair. Roz frowned.

"Did you get sick?" she asked.

"Naaaaah," Newt replied, rolling his head to the side and messaging his neck. Roz stood up, pocketing her knife and wood. She took Newt's face softly in her hands, turning him to face her, and brushing a hand along his forehead. Heat waved into her palm. While he usually looked pale and tired, it seemed different today. Roz sighed, and pulled back.

"You're sick," she stated.

"I'm not," Newt said, almost wining. Roz huffed and grabbed his hand tightly in her own.

"C'mon, Med-jack hut. You can't run if you're sick you'll either make yourself worse or get into danger. Or both." She pulled him along, ignoring his groanings and complaints. When they got to the Med-jack hut, Jeff looked up and sighed as Roz nodded to Newt, who now had his arms crossed and was staring moodily at the ground.

"I can't figure out what it is," Jeff said, guiding Newt over to the cot he kept free for new arrivals, "At first I thought it was a… cold? Y'know when you know something but don't remember how you know it?"

Roz snorted, "Tell me about it."

"Anyways," Jeff continued, busying himself with checking Newt over and sorting through painkillers, "at first I thought a cold. But like I don't understand how. We're cut off here. How would an illness get in? Anyways, it's not a cold. I don't think. It just seems different. A few sorry shanks have been vomiting. A few a passing out. It's getting worse each day. I don't know what it is and I don't know how to cure it. All I can do it throw painkillers at people." He looked desperate and tired. If he didn't get sick because of whatever was going round, soon the exhaustion would catch up with him.

"When can I get back to running?" Newt asked. Jeff sighed.

"Well, no one who got sick has gotten better yet, so no time soon." Newt groaned and flopped back on the bed. Roz frowned at him, stopping herself from saying how she was happy he was getting a break.

"I'll go let Minho know," she said, nodding to Jeff before leaving. She rolled her head around, trying to ignore the headache starting at the bottom of her skull.

Newt spent the next couple days locked away in the Map Room. If he couldn't run, he could at least do something useful. The Runners had recently discovered that the changes in the Maze repeated themselves, so he spent hours on end shuffling papers across each other, trying to match them up, to see if he could find anything. Of course, he's sure he'd be making a lot more progress if the pages hadn't been blurring in front of his eyes.

Sighing, he dropped the map he was looking at on the table and closed his eyes, rubbing his temples. Whatever he'd caught made him feel like something was cracking his skull open, and he'd spent the last few hours pushing down the nausea building up in his stomach and chest, resisting the urge to throw up like he'd spent the majority of the morning. Opening his eyes, he picked up the bottle of painkillers and unscrewed the bottle, tipping it over his hands. When nothing came out, he shook it violently, and then peered inside. He rolled his eyes when he found nothing inside.

Groaning, he pushed himself away from the table, pausing and leaning over it to try and stop from heaving. After a few deep breaths to settle his stomach, he opened the door and winced as the brightness from outside stabbed his eyes. After making sure the daylight wasn't going to make him throw up or go blind, he stepped out of the Map Room and started traipsing over to the Med-jack hut. As he walked, paying close attention to his breathing, he saw Roz over by the Homestead, talking to Daniel. He frowned at her.

Despite Roz's constant concerns about him, she didn't seem to realise that she always looked just as bad, if not even worse sometimes, especially whenever she retreated to her tower. Her skin was pallid, almost transparent, and the bruises she received while breaking up fights stood out harshly. She had a new one blooming across her jaw, the dark purple mottling her face. And she looked tired. He knew he ran himself to exhaustion in the Maze, and she berated him for it constantly, but she didn't realise that keeping the peace between thirty teenage boys took as much a toll on her as running did on him. He knew neither of them slept well. Sometimes they would both climb up to her tower so they could talk more freely without worrying about waking anyone. Other times they would whisper to each other, talking nonsense. A new turn Newt had taken in the Maze, a new bruise Roz received. Other times they would both just lie there together, matching their breathing and brushing their hands against each other every now and then.

As he watched, Roz looked down at the ground drowsily, holding up a hand to stop Daniel from talking. Then she swayed slightly. And then she collapsed.

Newt heard Daniel yelp as he rushed forward to catch her. Newt ran towards them, ignoring the growing nausea in his chest, staggering to a stop in front of them as Daniel laid Roz softly on the ground. Her eyelids were fluttering pathetically, and he could see her eyes rolling into the back of her head.

"Is she sick?" Newt demanded, crouching down next to her and Daniel.

"I-I-I-I don't know!" Daniel babbled, and then he yelled over his shoulder in desperation for someone to get a Med-jack.

"She looks sick…" Newt muttered, his hands running over her face and through her hair, "she looks terrible."

"She always looks sick!" Daniel said, before standing up and running to find help. Newt tried to stay by Roz, running his hands through her hair and over her burning forehead, but the world lurched around him. He squeezed his eyes shut, curling in on himself, mentally forcing his stomach back down. He opened his eyes again to see Daniel and Clint running towards him, but they were tipping. The entire world was tipping and his head was spinning and dots were clouding up his vision. He breathing sped up before halting, and no matter how much he tried to force his lungs to open again, all he could do was choke on nothing.

"Newt! Newt I need you to open your eyes!" someone said, somewhere far away. He hadn't even realised he'd closed them. Bright, colourful lights danced across his vision. Someone yelled his name again, but it was drowned out by thick fuzzing. He thought he felt something press against his throat and his head, pushing through the haze, trying to pull him back. But they failed.

Roz felt herself swirling back into consciousness. Her eyes fluttered open, and she found herself looking up at the dim ceiling of one of the tiny rooms in the Homestead. She breathed in carefully, grimacing at how the air disagreed with her stomach. She frowned harshly up at the ceiling, focusing on making her breathing as soft and unintrusive as possible. After a while of just lying there, she carefully pushed herself up, bringing a hand up to hold her head.

"Mornin'." She looked over and saw Newt sitting on the edge of the bed opposite. His shoulders were tense and he was looking at her heavily, blinking slowly. In the dimness of the room, Roz could see a yellow tinge to his skin, and a clammy sheen of sweat sweeping his face.

"Wha' happened," Roz muttered. Newt took a moment to reply, trying to gather the energy and also to avoid throwing up.

"You passed out," he said, "outside the Homestead. Then so did I. Then so did three other people. Then I woke up ten minutes ago. Then Jeff checked up on us. Then you just woke up."

"I'm sick?" she asked. Newt nodded, grunting slightly. Roz groaned, and laid back down on her own bed, curling up. She began to shiver slightly, feeling her clothes and hair cling to her clammy skin. "What is this crap," she whispered.

"Dunno but it bloody sucks," Newt said. He closed his eyes and leaned forward to drop his head between his knees. Roz cracked a weak smile.

"Thrown up yet?" she asked.

"All morning. Please don't make me think about it." He breathed in sharply through his nose and sat up again. Roz muttered an apology, and Newt waved her off.

Jeff came back to check up on them an hour or so later, bringing them both a bowl of soup. He informed them that pretty much every spare bed in the Glade was taken up by sick Gladers. They ranged from simply having a splitting headache, to having passed out and waves of nausea, like Newt and Roz, to full on unconsciousness and near constant vomiting. He left, telling them very sternly to eat their soup, even if they didn't feel like it.

Roz continued to lie on her bed, staring at the steaming soup on the table in front of her. Newt gripped his own bowl between his hands, frowning at it.

"Please tell me you also feel like you're going to throw it all up as soon as you eat it?" Roz said.

"I feel like I'm going to throw up just looking at it," Newt replied, sounding disgusted as he placed the bowl on the table. Roz snorted, and then regretted it, as she felt a lurch in her stomach. She sighed, pulling the thin blanket over her head.

Jeff came back that evening to find them both sleeping, facing each other, and two cold, full bowls of soup on the table between them. He sighed, picked up the bowls, and left a bottle of painkillers before leaving.

Roz and Newt spent the next couple days lying in the dim room in the Homestead. Several times, Newt tried to leave, insistent he could survive in the Map Room, only to be dragged back after passing out or vomiting. Roz was content to just lie in bed however, slipping in and out of consciousness.

"Newt, I honestly admire your determination," she mumbled, the third time Clint bought him back, "but I don't think you're gonna win this time, darlin'."

"I hate being cooped up in here," he muttered back.

"I know, Newt. Sucks."

When Jeff came in later that same day, Roz could instantly tell something was wrong. His face was drawn and he looked exhausted.

"Please tell me you ain't getting sick too," Roz asked. Jeff shook his head. Newt sat up slightly to look at him with a questioning look. Jeff hesitated.

"…Samuel's dead…" he whispered. Roz sat up fully, looking at him wide eyed.

"Because of the… being sick?" she asked. Jeff nodded. Newt and Roz looked at each other, fear and dread filling their eyes

"I… I'm doing everything I can, I promise," Jeff said, "no one else is going to die. I'm going to get you all better."

He left, muttering about needing to check up on everyone else. Roz swallowed, pressing her hands over her mouth. After a full minute of tense silence, she lowered them. "This is… this is going to kill us," she whispered.

"We… no we're not. We're gonna get better," Newt said, but the uncertainty was clear under his words.

"Newt this illness is killing us. It killed Samuel. Jeff isn't a doctor he's said that enough times we're going to die." Roz babbled, her voice rising in volume as her breathing became ragged, "The Creators want to kill us. They want to kill us this is just some sick game to see how long it takes to kill us all off its-"

"Hey, hey, hey," Newt muttered, slipping off his bed. He made his way over to her, shakily, and fell onto the bed next to her, pulling her into his arms. "We're gonna be fine. We can't… we can't die. Not here. Not yet. The Creators won't kill us. They won't. This illness isn't going to kill us. I refuse."

He stayed holding her as her breathing slowly evened out and she stopped shaking. Her eyes flicked about the room fearfully, as if something might suddenly jump out and attack them. Finally, she swallowed once, and then twice, and let out a heavy breath.

"I am astounded by your determination," She whispered. She clung to him, her fingers fisting onto his clothing and he wrapped his arms around her tightly, both of them shivering violently. Newt murmured reassurances into Roz's hair until, slowly, they both passed out again.

Did I ever tell you guys that foreshadowing is like my favourite thing ever :) Thanks to CloakSky10213 for reviewing the last chapter; I am honestly you got in so soon, but I'm not complaining. I also wouldn't complain if anyone reviews this chapter ;)