#leader!reader

The first day is hard. You walk around, feet bare on the soft grass trying to remember. Remember anything, at all. Not even your name, you don’t remember anything. 

You’ve found yourself in a lush, green square, maybe a kilometer in each direction, forested, and you can hear a rushing river towards the lake. The kicker is: this square is surrounded by towering walls. Walls that are too tall to climb safely, walls that, is you stare at the for too long, give you the chills.

While the first day is hard, the second, you go back to the elevator and look around the boxes, unloading them one at a time and burrowing through them. Shoes, clothes, enough food for two weeks. Some plywood, and axe and a bucket.

Most chillingly, a note.

Stay alive.

You venture out into the grey walls that day, making sure you’re back well before sunset, when the cool air chills you to the bone. You make a fire and dry your clothes completely.

That first month, you alternate between exploring and building. You build the chicken pastures and coops, tackling the cows next. You plant the seeds that have been supplied for you, and gradually build up a shelter that turns into a hut. You collect moss and use old scraps of packing fabric to make yourself a mattress and a pillow.

the next month, the boys start arriving.

You welcome them to the place you’ve dubbed the Glade and introduce yourself by the name you’ve finally remembered.

Y/n.

Alby, Siggy, and Alfred listen to you. They’re good guys, but they suggest ways to get out, something you’ve tried time and time again.

You take them over to the name wall, where you’ve carved yours big and in the middle, and let them do theirs like yours.

Alfred dies first and you bury him yourself, exactly six feet under. You learn a valuable lesson that day, though. 

you’re not alone.

Someone’s watching.

Two more sets of three boys show up, then a few of two, for about a year, and then one boys comes up in the elevator - the Box - every month, heralding supplies and another 30 days lost to the Maze.

You run the Maze in the days and organize the Glade on your off days. You’ve appointed everybody a place in the glade, including your best friends, Newt, Keeper of the gardens, and Minho, who you’ve resolved your position of Keeper of the Runners to, as with the arrival of more boys, there’s fires to put out on the daily. That’s not to say that you don’t run the maze, of course, but you find it depressing. Only Minho, Newt and Alby know the truth. There’s no way out. You mapped every inch of it yourself, built the map in the forbidden cartography room.

The wall of names fills. You always have the job of carving lines through the boys’ names who’ve passed, usually doing something stupid, or getting stung by the Grievers.

On the eve of your fourth year in the Maze, you and Minho are running late. Very, very late, and as you bolt around a corner at full speed, pursued by a clicking griever, you think briefly about Newt and what he’ll do once you and Minho are gone. 

“Come on, Y/n!” Minho screams. You take a tight corner and speed up at the sound of the Griever slamming into the wall. It doesn’t stop. 

Minho, the sweet, lovable, absolute dumbass, has slowed his own run so you can catch up.

“Run!” you scream, passing him. The Griever scrabbles and screams. 

The Glade.

If you don’t shake this Griever, it will endanger the Glade. 

The walls are shifting as night falls completely, you can see the opening thinning. Not fast enough. You slide through, shouting at Newt to give you the fucking spear, and then, just as Minho breaches the Glade’s threshold, you throw the spear like a javelin and hit the Griever right in its slobbering mouth. It screams and collapses, right as its body is concealed by the closing walls. 

You settle down on the grass, head between your hands as you come to terms of what just happened.

You faced off a Griever.

And survived, and kept Minho alive, too.

The boys gather around the two of you, the only two runners that day, and solemnly pat your shoulders. Newt’s eyes are teary as he embraces you, someone he considers to be his younger sister. You suck in a wet gasp as you card your fingers through his hair.

“You… you need a haircut,” You tell him, trying to bring some light to the situation. Minho remarks something about liking it, and suggests that he might need to grow his out like Newt has. 

“Mean hoe, if you do that, I’m disowning you.”

Minho laughs and you hug him.

Just you  and your boys.

You’re out of the Glade when the Greenie arrives. Running the maze, while Ben is sick, you and Minho quickly fall back into rhythm. Out here, out in the Maze, you feel ironically free, stuck in the stone walled prison. It gives you a break from constantly putting out fires (though you do feel a little guilty leaving Alby with the incoming Greenie) and greeting yet another Greenie who is surprised that you, the only girl, are the leader. (There’s only been a few, but you’re long overdue for the next. Chuck, the most recent, is a cherubic twelve-year-old who was surprised a group of boys could do what they had alone, before meeting you. After which you adopted him as your child)

Today is a very routine day, jogging along until the sun reaches its peak, stopping and eating lunch, and then running again.

Both you and Minho know that there’s absolutely no way out, but it’s nice to pretend for a while. Minho fills your mental blankness with funny anecdotes and remarks that would sound flirty or downright creepy from anyone else but your Mean Hoe. 

When the sun drops low enough to start casting shadows, you head back, having found absolutely nothing new. 

Right near the eastern entrance of the Glade, Alby is introducing a wide-eyed Greenie to the last of the brief tour - one that covers about an eighth of the extensive one that you traditionally conduct the day after the elevator brings the newest boy up. You and Minho jog over, and you can just see Minho putting on his surly attitude. He nods at him.

“Greenie.”

Minho, who has done this literally every single introduction jogs away, to the map room in the woods. You roll your eyes, knowing that he’s probably patting himself on the back for another great performance. 

“Hi,” you say, smiling. You offer your hand for him to shake. Shit, he’s actually cute, though. Scruffy black hair, wide copper eyes and cheekbones for days, he stares at you like you’re a mystery, which, in a Glade full of boys, you suppose you are. His touch is weirdly familiar, calloused hand gripping yours firmly. “I’m Y/n.”

Alby interrupts the moment by putting a gentle, threatening hand on the Greenie’s shoulder. 

“Y/n’s the leadership around here. Shes like a sister to the boys.” 

The message is clear: Y/n is off limits.

The Greenie swallows visibly, and you find yourself entranced by his adam’s apple and his chiseled collarbone. Alby clears his throat. 

“Y/n, I think Clint needed your help with Mike’s leg.”

That distracts you.

“What happened? did he tear his stitches again?”

“Better go check it out.” Alby shrugs. “He looked worried.”

“And you just decided… not to ask him what was wrong?” You bid the two goodbye and storm off, muttering under your breath about stupid shucking useless boys.

After an hour of careful stitching and stapling, you and Clint successfully graft a piece of skin onto Mike’s leg. You’ve missed dinner, so the two of you stop by the kitchens to see if Fry has saved any food, and are rewarded with his famous grilled cheese sandwich, a delicacy in the Glade.

The Greenie bonfire is another tradition, where every group of Gladers celebrate another arrival around the biggest bonfire of the month. Gally makes his special mix, The cooks supply bonfire snacks later in the night, and the community of boys you’ve built celebrates together.

You gratefully accept the jar from Gally, the stony- faced keeper of the Builders, and search out Minho from the group of boys, laughing and joking around. He’s sitting with Dan, dazedly looking out into the fire, tuning out the party. 

You gulp down your drink before offering him a sip. He waves it away, leaning his head on your shoulder. You ruffle his hair before catching Newt’s eye. You haven’t even talked to your other best friend all day, so you wave at him and make your way over. Minho squawks unintelligibly over losing his pillow.

“Hey, Newtie,” you greet the Keeper. He’s not yet showered, so his face has smudges of dirt and grime marring his features. “Greenie. Still no luck on the name?”

The Greenie shakes his head no, and you sigh, sitting down beside him.

“Well, we have all of tomorrow to coax it out of ya.” You sigh. 

His mouth drops open and his eyes voice out okie a fish. You grab his shoulders and pull him up. 

“Cmon, you’re the guest of honor. Newfie’s just been keeping you all to himself, I guess.”

You wave your hands at each group, you and Newt alternating between explaining who everyone is. Passing by the fight circle, Gally’s latest victim, Nick, runs into Thomas. You and Newt share a look, both knowing full well what Gally’s expression means.

“What’d ya say, Greenie? Wanna see what you’re made of?”

The Greenie shakes his head, but everybody’s already chanting his name. You push him lightly towards Gally, sending the Builder a pointed look. Don’t kill him on his first day.

The boys are circling. You blend back into the audience, eager to see this boy’s potential.

The fistfights are only allowed on the first day of every month, after the greenie arrives. Any other time, you’ve prohibited them from ever happening, else the boys get stuck in the Slammer for a week. 

And, so what if you enjoy whooping ass during these night, proving who’s really in charge.

Gally is bigger than the greenie, and, after a few rounds, is getting cocky. This is his weakness. You and Minho share a look. It’s always difficult to know when to step in to these types of things. The Greenie suffers from it too, getting too confident and ending up hitting his head hard on the sand.

He freezes on the ground, eyes immediately finding you. 

“Thomas,” he breathes out. He jumps to his feet. “I remember my name! Thomas!”

A smile splits your face, this being your favorite part of orientation, the elation of recalling something - anything. 

“Thomas!” You yell, with the rest of the gladers. You’re the first to him, shaking his hand. Alby pats his back hard. 

“Welcome to the Glade, Thomas.”

The sun rises and you with it, as corny as it sounds, but you have an orientation day ahead and the post sunrise glade calm is the best way to really introduce a greenie to the environment. 

Thomas.

You hadn’t been able to sleep last night, turning his name over and over in your head. Why does it sound so familiar? did he mean something to you?

You weave through the maze of hammocks- the boys sleep outside when it’s hotter out -  and prod thomas’s shoulder. His eyes shoot open, jerking up, mouth poised to shout. You clamp your hand over his mouth, finger to your lips. 

“Get up. We have a long day ahead of us.”

“This is the Glade, the only place in the Maze we stay safe,” You explain. The watchtower is the beginning of all of your tour. “Every morning, those walls open. Every night, they close, hiding us from the monsters in the maze.

“Monsters?”

“Grievers. Nasty things. That’s why we run the maze, because there’s always a chance the walls don’t close, and we want to be out of here by the time that happens.”

Thomas looks out over the Glade. The runners are just departing. Minho and Dan. 

“What if I want to be a runner?”

You purse your lips. Another one of your ponderings last night was how to break the news to him.

“Newt told you. You need to be chosen.”

“By who?”

“Me,” You say. “Newt, Alby, Minho, Gally. All the Keepers and the ones who have a say in goings on in the Glade vote to choose the new runners.”

“But-“

“I’m not saying it’s impossible. I’m saying you can’t be one immediately. That’s what today’s about. Finding your place in the Glade.”

The breakfast bell rings, Fry always vigilant on his timing.

“C’mon Thomas. Time for breakfast. Then we begin.”

He’s taking the tour, your patient answers to his every question, the Glade well enough for a greenie. Right now, he’s in the phase where he tries to find a way out.

“What about climbing the vines?”

“Tried it. That’s how Alfred died. They don’t reach the top, and even if they did, the Glade is an Island in the Maze.”

“going down in the box?” 

“Doesn’t leave with someone in it.”

“what about the shaft? I saw some rope, maybe-“

“Tried it! Everything you can think of, we’ve already tried.”

You wave your hand at the wall. 

“It never gets us anywhere. The best chance- the only chance we have is by running the maze.”

Thomas falls silent.

Finally, he’s come to the realization every Glader has to make.