#themazerunner

It looked like another life. There were… girls there? And familiar surroundings, you thought. They looked at you like you were one of them. You ran with them, ate with them. You healed their wounds and let yourself be healed. 

Sometimes you saw the edges and walls of the maze, burning deep hues of many colors and closing in on you. You recognized the place, of course, but sometimes it felt… different. You knew the maze was always shifting, always changing, but this one in your dreams made something click in your gut, like it wasn’t the same set of shifting walls at all. 

It came only in bits and pieces, but you knew this must be something important. It dared you to recognize it. 

Then you’d wake up, to your real life, back sore from being in a hammock, and the gray of the morning would make your dreams ebb away. Your eyes adjusted to the sight of boys running through the fields of the Glade, demanding you to get up and do your job along with them. 

You sighed and squeezed your eyes shut again, trying to chase the visions that were leaving you unapologetically. 

“Good morning.” A low voice resounded above you. You opened your eyes.

With his hands folded behind his back, Minho leaned forward and blew sharply into your face, making your hair tickle your forehead. 

You punched him in the shoulder lightly. “That’s not something I want to smell this early.”

“Guess you should get up then.” 

You swung your legs over the hammock and stepped out, stretching your arms above your head.

“How was your night?” He asked, falling into step with you as you headed away from the tented area and toward the gardens, blinking yourself awake and rolling your shoulders back and forth. 

“Cryptic. And you?”

You had told only a couple people about the dreams, and not in great detail. Only that you were receiving whispers of memories from before the Maze, like most people in the Glade. Nothing enough to be distinct. Just tugging at the brain, leaking a previous life. Minho was one of those few Gladers you talked to about it. He had stood up for you for a moment a year ago, and now the two of you had grown closer.

“Slept like a baby.” He replied.

You ran your hands through your hair and crouched at the foot of a plot you had been working on for the past few months. It was making steady progress so far. It felt good to have a hand in growing life and food here, and it etched away just slightly at the monstrous imposter syndrome you often felt as a Glader.

Not everyone was as amicable with you as Minho was. Some boys gave you distrusting looks, others didn’t find it necessary to speak to you. Many went out of their way to step in and complete a job you were working hard on- sowing crops, building tents- as if they were saving themselves the inconvenience of fixing whatever you were bound to mess up. 

It was an impossible double standard that you had complained about in the first few months. 

“You complain that I don’t do my part enough, and then take over before I can. Either trust me enough to grow your food- OUR food- or leave it alone, and know that I could’ve helped if you grew a pair.”

It was Adam you had been speaking to. Alby stood next to him, eyes darting between the two of you.

Adam threw his hands up in frustration. 

“This is what I mean! She’s just being a bitch for no reason.”

Alby held his hand out. 

“Stop. The both of you. If you’re going to fight, I’ll gladly throw the both of you in the pit until you’ve calmed down. And then the others will have to pick up your jobs. Do you want that?”

“Of course not.” You said through your teeth. You could feel your chest buzzing with anger. But if you blew up, everyone would look to you to blame, not Adam.

Adam sighed. “I don’t want to have to rebuild a stupid bench just because you want everyone to put in an equal share.”

“He’s being immature.” You said, only looking at Alby now. 

“No one is saying you’d have to rebuild anything. We are all Gladers, and we need to trust one another. If she’s willing to put in the work, and is doing her part, then we don’t have a problem.” Alby said firmly. 

He had made you both shake hands and continue working on opposite ends of the Glade. Adam scoffed something about how the whole situation was bullshit and later, during dinner, very pointedly avoided sitting on the bench you had finished building.

You, Newt, Minho, and Fry had sat on the bench together. It was sturdy and gave you no problems. 

“I don’t know how you do that.” You continued, not taking your eyes off of the budding plants in front of you.

“What?” He asked, crouching alongside you and adjusting his vest before staring at the garden just as intently as you. 

“Sleep well, I mean. Those hammocks are seriously killing my back.”

“I run it off.”

“Sure.”

You stood, brushing off your pants and began to walk off until Minho placed a sturdy hand on your shoulder. “Where are you going?”

“To get the watering can…?” 

He shook his head. “The Box should be coming up any minute now.”

You smacked your forehead. In the haze of your dreams last night, your mind had woken up elsewhere. 

“God, you’re right. How could-”

And then, it started. A ratchet of clanking and the turning of gears. Heads turned, and a small crowd was already waiting at the edge of the Box. That included Gally, Newt, Ben, Peter, and Alby. 

Minho was already running toward the scene. He called after you.

“You can water your plants later!”

You scoffed and ran after him without another word. 

You were usually the first member of the crowd for these kinds of things. News from Runners, arrivals from the Box, anything. But you had forgotten today. You shook off the guilty feeling that you were getting too comfortable. 

Pushing through the group of boys, you joined the front lines of whoever was peering down at the box. Gally was already bracing himself to jump down inside, until a terrified voice resounded from below. 

“Wh-where am I? Help! Help!!”

A shiver ran down your spine. There were murmurs among the crowd. Gally’s eyebrows furrowed. He paused in a half braced stance. 

“Anybody!”

That voice… It's so young. 

Out of the rest of the crowd, you were the Glader to lean down and offer your hand.

“Hi.” You said.

He blinked back at you, reaching out to take your hand.

You put a firm group on his elbows, helping him climb up onto a crate and then out of the Box and onto the grass. You heard a few boys mutter something about ‘maternal instincts’ and chuckle. 

“Try not to panic. It’s okay.” 

He clutched onto your arms like you were someone he’d known for years, someone to trust. 

“Where am I?” He asked. Then, he jerked his head back as if something had just hit him. “Who am I?? Holy shit, I don’t know who I am!”

A few chuckles came from the crowd. You placed a hand on his shoulder. 

“It’s okay. This happens to everyone on the first day.”

The boy paused. He scanned the crowd, taking in his new surroundings. “Everyone?” He asked, addressing you directly. “What is this?”

You opened your mouth to give a canned response that most people gave to all the Greenies, but paused. Briefly, you met eyes with Gally. His gaze was hard, but he was looking at you inquisitively. In the past year, this was the first Greenie you had spoken to as an introduction. As the person to help first. For the most part, it was you knowing your place. You knew you stuck out. You knew Alby was in charge of things like this. It felt awkward to you to explain the Glade to new Greenies, as if you had arrived in the same way. As if you too had climbed out of the Box, into helping hands. As if you hadn’t run for your life out of the Maze into sharp daylight and suspicious faces- which had become your first firm memory. As if you fit in at all. But this boy who you had just helped climb out of the Box was proof of more difference. Someone else who stuck out, like you, if not to a different degree. You changed your mind, and the next words came out soft.

“Somewhere safe.”

It was a lie, if you looked further into it. But enough to make the kid stop shaking.

𖣠

He was a nice kid. You could feel it radiating from him underneath all the panic. After a few hours of inconsolable emotion in the pit, the others dragged him out and he was immediately met with teasing and a kind of performative sympathy from the other boys. 

He was looking for friends more than anything else, you noted. Immediate community. He was sharp and curious. He had a light sense of humor that refreshed the way you tried to look at the Glade with an eagle eye, uncovering its layers, understanding it as something trying to outsmart you. 

He went by Chuck.

“I can’t get my head around it.” You said while hungrily eating your food, the bowl of jerky and bread slices balancing on your knees as you sat on a bench in the shade. You had helped build it. You had done a lot of odd end jobs for the place you now felt forced to call home. It gave you focus. Newt was sat next to you, eating his meal just the same. 

“Around what?” He asked, not looking up from his meal. 

You finished chewing a bite of jerky, then tilted your head, gaze focused elsewhere. “He’s young. Not close to anyone else’s age around here.”

Newt hummed. “It’s strange, for sure. But not totally unreasonable. He came up in the Box, at the right time, right place. He’s a kid, yeah, but otherwise everything has been routine.” 

You stared down at the bowl. “I know that.”

Newt looked up at you. “What’s bothering you?”

You stood up suddenly, setting your bowl down and standing in front of him with your hands on your hips. 

“It’s just… I’m looking for clues. For more… discrepancies. Chuck is a little different too… like me. I mean, the circumstances are very different, sure, but… it just makes me wonder where we came from more and more. And why we’re stuck here.”

Newt set his bowl down slowly, and met your eyes. He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I know. I know you're looking. And I know you're trying hard… in the maze, too, looking. Just try not to ambush him.” 

You scrunched your eyebrows and crossed your arms. “Ambush?”

Newt chuckled, grabbing both of your empty bowls and standing. “Yeah, you know. The way you have with all the other Greenies.”

He clapped a hand on your shoulder as he passed you, on the way to the kitchen.

You stood there dumbfounded. Sure, you had caught every Greenie early after their arrival and asked them a few things. If there was anything strange they remembered, any detail that felt off to them. Anything in the Glade that stuck out to them. Anything that they felt separated them from the rest of the group. Were you really that persistent? 

Ben shook you out of your thoughts. He was jogging toward you, calling out your name. 

“Hey. The rest of us are ready.”

The vest felt tight around your shoulders and chest. You nodded. “Alright. Let’s go.”

Four weeks ago, you had become a Runner. 

Or, more accurately, four weeks ago Minho had stumbled into your small hut (your one place of privacy from the other boys) and discovered everything you had scribbled down when you woke up with instructions on your lips from hazy dreams. 

200-300 ft high

8 sections (but I remember 14?)

Walls move this direction

Rotate

Always run along border

Different creature than the dream ones

“What are these?” He had asked, sifting through loose papers. 

“Um… notes. Memories. Some things I keep track of for how the Maze shifts around.”

“How do you know? You’ve never been inside.”

You raised an eyebrow. Minho exhaled. “Save for that one time.”

You shrugged. “I don’t know, I just… I’m confident I could find my way around if you sent me in there. If you showed me a map. I could do it.”

You hadn’t expected to do it right then and there, but you were making a case for yourself.

Send me into the Maze. Make me a Runner. 

Alby’s words echoed in your mind.

None of this is a coincidence. 

Minho squinted at you, as if trying to spot something in your eyes he hadn’t seen before. He was sizing you up. 

“What would be different then if you joined the mapmakers? If you outlined the place instead?”

“I have to go back in there.” You said quickly. “You have to understand. I didn’t come here the way the rest of you did. There’s some sort of secret that I know I’m stumbling into, something that could help us, get us out of here, but… I won’t know more unless I go into the Maze. As a Runner.”

There was a pause. Minho stared at you for a long moment. You could see the gears turning in his head “Okay.” He said.

“Okay?” You replied. “Okay like, you’ll call a Gathering okay?”

“No.” He said. “I don’t know what the other Keepers are going to say about this if I bring it up firsthand. I’ll talk to Alby and Newt first. Then we’ll do a gathering. But…”

You put your hands on your hips. Would this all really work? 

“But even if the other Keepers disagree… I think Alby and Newt trust you. Hell, I trust you. I don’t know how much. But enough to know that you need to be out there too.”

And that was how it happened. After some fighting and constantly having to make a case for yourself, you were finally able to put on that vest and run into the Maze. 

Currently, you and Minho were supposed to just touch around the border of Section 7 that intersected with the other parts of the maze and begin to map out that area- while finding a better shortcut back. 

Ben walked with you to the entrance. You matched each other's stride, though he seemed to walk a comfortable distance away from you.

The others were waiting at the entrance. Minho didn’t hesitate a second longer to glance at you both, nod toward the Maze, and head inside with a jog. 

𖣠

More cold stone and tangling ivy. As soon as you and the other Runners started to feel like you had a handle on the place, it would shift and throw you off and surprise you again, taunting the impossibility of escape. 

There was no walking around here. Both you and Minho were at a steady run, passing by the giant ‘7’ that was marked on one of the walls. 

He led you both to the right, before stopping briefly to peek around a corner. 

“Dead end?” You asked.

He shook his head. “No, I-”

There was a chittering noise behind you.  Immediately, it felt like your blood froze. You never got used to that sound. The way it made the hairs on your arms raise. You grabbed Minho’s elbow. 

“This way.” 

Heading in the opposite direction of the corner he just looked around, you both crossed into section 7 away from the Griever’s noise. 

“The rest of the group shouldn’t be too far off from us. We can regroup from here.” He said.

“Shouldn’t we try to explore that intersection more?” Your brows furrowed. “The space has shifted to be more open than before, and I think we can cut through it to get back into the Glade faster-”

Minho shook his head. “I agree, but after we find the group. There’s Grievers nearby and we can’t search for a shortcut if we’re dead.”

“I know it’s not worth it to be hasty, but I don’t think this section will be open for much longer.” You pressed. “Once we find the group it might shift itself closed again, we can pay attention to the timing if we stick around the border for a bit longer.”

Minho shook his head firmer. “No. It’s not safe.”

You were growing frustrated. “It’s never safe.”

“I know, but you need to know what battles to pick. What risks are worth taking. And right now, we need to go.”

Your argument was further cut off by another chittering noise. It was closer this time. On the other side of the wall, just around the corner, mechanical limbs scraped against the stone floor with an ugly sound. 

Both you and Minho met eyes. He brought a finger to his lips, grabbing your shoulder with his other hand. You stayed quiet for a moment. Maybe, if the Griever didn’t know the both of you were there, it would pass you. Just maybe. 

It clunked its way into view, coming into the gap where both of you were squatting at the end of the section. If it kept its eyes forward, didn’t sense you to its left, you would be safe. 

The Griever paused. Its head snapped toward you. 

Or not.

Immediately, you were up and running. Side by side, you and Minho navigated in and out and through different sections of the Maze, skidding around the corner as you heard the Griever take off in a run toward you.

Your stomach crawled as you ran. Something in you felt guilty. Just to your left was more of the space along the border of section 7 that you had been desperate to explore. If you could observe the walls and their position from there, you could expand the map that the Runners had been using for the past couple months. Minho was leading you in the opposite direction. But you had a feeling.

You diverged, booking it and turning toward your left into section 7. Minho yelled after you, almost pausing, until you heard the Griever roar. Alarmed, he tore himself away and kept running toward the right, away from you. 

Now separated from each other, you noticed a small, square shaped gap in the wall to your left creating an entrance into the section that was separated by the rest of the wall.

Why would it cut through like that?

You quickly got onto your knees and pushed yourself through the gap, which was just small enough for a person to fit through. Arms reaching out, you wiggled your hips through and landed onto the ground. 

Not far behind was the Griever, which slammed its body into the small entrance in attack. 

You yelped, falling onto your butt and watching as it frustratingly stuck an arm through the entrance, clawing for you. 

Breathing heavily, you noticed that you were safe for now. There was no way it could follow you through that gap. 

Until it found another way around, that was. You shot up to your feet and turned away from the Griever, starting to chart new territory. 

It was a wide open space, unusual and different from other parts of the maze. As you walked, you noted divots in the floor that looked suspiciously like beams or sharp walls were meant to shoot up from them, stopping whoever got this far by isolating them or blocking them from leaving the section. 

You crouched down, running your hand along a divot. 

What triggers this?

You suddenly got the feeling that you should step far away from the divot and continued to navigate the new area, keeping a better distance from any other divots marking the floor. 

It’s like a minefield. 

You looked up, noticing the way the walls were… rounding out?

Instead of cutting in perpendicular, at an angle like most other sections of the maze, these towering walls seemed to be sneakily curving around, almost like it was creating a vast arena. 

You knew what this might mean. If the area was lethal, seemingly more dangerous than other sections… it had to mean you were closer to finding the truth. Closer to an exit. Why else would the maze try harder to eviscerate you?

The divots, the rounding corners… What happens here when the place activates? When we get close enough to the exit that it wants to stop us?

You looked around suddenly, panicked. Sure enough, far in the distance slabbed onto the walls were huge circle shapes protruding. They looked like they would hinge open, like a door. 

For Grievers to come out. 

Now you knew you had pushed enough. It was time to go before you got caught by one of those things again. 

You ran back the way you came, checking out the small gap you had come in from. It was quiet. 

I can’t be sure that it’s safe… But there’s no other way back.

You crawled through the gap and crouched, silently. No chittering noises. 

Carefully, you stalked along the edge of the wall, listening if the same Griever was still waiting for you. No sound. You peeked around the corner. Nothing.

You knew better than to relax. So, you took off from around the corner at full speed, determined to find Minho again. 

Something followed you a second after. Huge and clicking and determined to get you this time.

Damn it!

You didn’t look back. You knew where you were going now.

Turn right, left, around… section 6 coming up…

As soon as you rounded the next corner, you promptly slammed into someone’s chest. It shocked you, and you looked to see who you had effectively scared.

Minho!

“Where did you-”

“No time!” You shouted, grabbing his arm. He understood. 

The both of you ran until you could see the light reaching out toward you from the exit into the Glade. 

“Did we lose it?” He asked you, breathless.

“I hope so.” You said back. 

Ben and Hank had already returned for the evening, and were headed toward the Map Room. 

The adrenaline was still coursing through you, and you placed your hands on your knees to catch your breath. Minho crossed his arms. 

“You can’t run off like that.” He said firmly, staring down at you. It wasn't the first time this had happened.

“Sorry.” You said, standing to face him. “I just… I had a feeling.”

Minho rubbed his face. “‘Feelings’ might get you killed if you don’t know where you’re going.”

“I know. But the risk was worth it. I found something.”

He turned toward you, closer. “Something new?”

You nodded, breathless. “Yes. I think it’s important. I need to…” You paused, looking at your hands, observing two of your fingers that had rust colored stains on them from touching the divots. 

Minho nodded to the direction that Ben and Hank had gone in. “Map Room. Let’s go.”

You both headed over there in a rush, taking a quick stride. 

“Just to be clear, this doesn’t mean you’re off the hook for being stupid.” Minho continued.

“I know.” You responded. “Just… let me explain all this first. Then you can decide how mad you need to be.”

“How can I return to the Maze when I don’t belong there?” You asked. 

Everyone else had found a spot, sitting or standing, observing while you stood in the middle of the dirt floor staring down Gally. 

“Then what exactly would you call this situation? Because to me, it’s looking like everything in the Glade was going fine until you suddenly came careening out of the Maze. Right?” He waved his hands around, gesturing to the rest of the crowd, like the other boys should agree with him.

Everything's still going fine now, as far as I can tell.

“If you didn’t come from the Maze, then where the hell did you come from?”

“I don’t know. I can’t remember anything.” You said, the words sharp and slow like were trying to get a point across. “Just like you.”

We’re in the same boat.

“Just like me. Just like me, really? Nothing about you is like me.”

He stepped dangerously close and grabs the collar of your shirt, voice low and deliberate.

“Who sent you?”

You grabbed his hand and shove him off, pushing him backward with one hand. A warning.  “I don’t know. If those are the answers you’re looking for, I don’t have them.”

“Both of you, stop.” Alby said, stepping forward. “Gally, walk it off. Seriously.” 

He grabbed Gally by the shoulders and pushed him back into the crowd, firm but non aggressive.

“Look, Greenie…” He addressed you. “It’s been a couple days. If there’s anything else that you know, anything that you’re…” His words died out, but you knew what he meant.

…Hiding from us.

Alby motioned to the crew around him. “We have a right to know.”

You could be a danger.

“I would tell you if I knew anything else.” You responded, firm. “I swear.”

“You want to know what I think?” Someone interrupted. 

It was Minho, leaning against the wall of the hut. 

“She survived a night in the maze, right?” Several boys around him nodded. He stepped forward, addressing you know, staring at you between your eyes. “You managed to take all the right turns. The right passageways. You escaped a Griever. “So…”

There was a dramatic pause. Newt’s eyebrows scrunched, seemingly pinpointing what he was about to propose. 

“Either you’re insanely lucky, or you should be a Runner.”

Immediately, a round of outbursts. There were some shouts in your favor, and some passionately against. 

“Are you serious? That doesn’t make any sense!” Gally held his hand up, willing some other boys to quiet down. “She’s been here for three days. And now you’re going to send into the Maze as a Runner? As one of us?”

“I thought you wanted me to go back.” You said slyly. 

“Oh, I’m sorry. Was I not clear enough? I’d love it if you charged back in there. Just don’t bother coming back out.”

That did it. You spat in his face.

There was a gap of a solid three seconds of silence as he wiped his face. 

“Gally-”

The punch was brutal. Clean across your face with a crack, and you could tell that he was holding back just a pinch. It’s somehow more insulting. 

Hitting him back would be stupid. Maybe they would send me back into the Maze if I hit one of their own.

Maybe I should go back.

You wiped your nose. Great.

“I’m not just going to hit you back.” You said, crossing your arms, feeling warmth starting to seep from your nose. Everything stung, and you were doing everything in your power not to let hot tears start to form in your eyes. You swallowed. You could see Alby and Newt’s shoulders relax. Some of the boys, however, almost deflated with disappointment. 

Gally shook his hand. “That’s what I thought.”

He turned from you, walking back into a group of snickers and oohs.

Then you were angry enough to take a few steps, rear your leg back, and kick him where it hurts. 

There was a huge uproar in the crowd as Gally doubled over into a couple other boys, clearly boiling, and he was about to turn and lunge again until someone grabbed you from under your shoulders and dragged you away. 

𖣠

It was Newt who was half hoisting you up, walking backwards and pushing the door of the hut with his back to leave the chaos. 

“How hard was it to resist the urge of putting your foot up Gally’s arse?”

He was behind you, so you couldn’t see if his face was disappointed or amused. You spat out blood that was trickling down from your nose into your mouth. 

“Difficult. His head was in the way.”

He scoffed and you let your feet ground themselves again. 

The momentary quiet was replaced by a death rattling rumble. Even the sky seemed to shake, filtering into your already pounding headache and demanding attention. Immediately your gaze shot to the Maze.

Doors closing. The stone gap was narrowing, slowly but surely, just like it had been for the past couple days (and the entirety of the Glade). 

Newt had taken a few steps back now. He looked at you, hands placed on his hips.

“Guess that buys you some time.”

You didn’t mean to, but your face dropped. He noticed and held a hand out, apologetic.

“Oh no, I’m joking, obviously.”

You relaxed, shoulders dropping, a scoff escaping your lips. You tilted your head toward the hut. “Not obvious to some in there.”

𖣠

About an hour after things calmed down, you sat just outside the kitchen with a measly cloth pressed against your nose, elbows resting on your knees. Alby sat beside you.

“We’re not ‘sending you back’, if that’s what you were wondering.” He said, using air quotes. 

“Good to hear.” You said flatly. You tore off a piece of a hunk of bread that was held in your other hand and chewed thoughtfully. The best strategy, you decided, would be to sport the bruise unbothered at dinner and sit with whoever didn’t carry any animosity toward you. But for now, you wanted time away to think. You stared off into the slowly dissipating light behind the forest. 

“I know that so far it’s been… tense. But it will get better. With you living here. I mean, for the most part you don’t have a choice.”

You had gauged Alby as being a bit calculating. It was part of the foundation of his leadership, and good leadership at that. Everything you were told was kind of on a need-to-know basis, and you didn’t need to know many things as a newbie. But here, he was being completely blunt.

You set the cloth down. The bleeding had stopped, for now. You peered down at your hands, sighing. 

“I know. But, about what Minho said…” You trailed off, waiting for a reaction from him. Nothing. 

He scoffed, lightly. “Yeah, I know what you’re wondering. Are you a Runner, or a coincidence?” 

There was a pause. Alby also looked at his hands, folding them together, before casting a glance toward the closed walls, cold and still, of the Maze.

You had tried to sleep, but little rest came, absent of dreams. Like your mind was reaching out its hands, grasping desperately for any memory to latch onto and fill your subconscious during rest. Nothing came to you. Only facts remained- the cold stone of the maze and the clothes on your back when you had woken up. 

However, for now you were on your feet. Out of the hut. It was sunny that day, the light glinting through the trees that lined the borders of the place. It might have been beautiful if all the boys in the place hadn’t been wearing the same look on their face. That temporary turmoil, like everyone knew in their bones it wasn’t quite right that they were there. 

You let your eyes go soft, glazing over with visions of the maze as you were spoken too. 

Based on the look on their faces, you have to assume that they've already tried everything.

“It’s the same for the rest of us. Only a name to hold onto, nothing else. But we work together well.”

Someone waved a hand in front of your face.

“Hello? Still okay?” 

You blinked and nodded. “I’m fine.”

It was Alby who was speaking to you, giving you what seemed like a well practiced introduction. He waved toward the man beside him. 

“Newt, give her the lay of the land.” 

“Sure.”

Alby headed off to follow people calling his name. 

Newt glanced at you and tilted his head away from the hut, motioning for you to follow and beginning to walk toward the center of the Glade with a gentle gait.

“So, Greenie, as Alby just explained to you, everyone has a role here.”

There were boys around the center, messing around with what looked like a garden. People were carrying crates to and fro a hut that appeared to be a kitchen, steam lifting out from a small carved out window. 

“You’ve met Gally already.” Newt noted, nodding toward the dark-eyed boy who was giving them not-so-subtle glares from his position across the field.

“Yeah. What is he, the group asshole?”

He scoffed in return, amused.

“He’s arrogant, that’s for sure. But he’s the Keeper of the Builders. Him and the others have helped put up the majority of this stuff.” Newt sighed, rubbing his face.

Your eyes crossed over the number of structures littering the place. It did make the place look more like home. 

“In other words?” You asked.

“In other words, they’re good with their hands, but there’s not a lot going on upstairs.” Newt smirked as he watched you take in the rest of the scene.

“It’s about twenty acres of forest and farmland.” He continued. “There’s a creek through the trees down there, and more stuff for foraging. Whatever world exists past the walls, we’re not sure.”

Past the walls.

You nod toward the colossal stone, thinking of the… Grievers, did they call them?

“Do those things come out every night?”

Newt looked down, a glance twitching toward his knee. 

“Yup.”

“So other people have been inside the maze?” You muse.

“Of course.” He blinks back, like it’s obvious. He pointed toward a stand-out group about 40 feet away, huddling together and engaged in what appeared to be intense conversation. They all had similar harnesses on, the ones you had noticed earlier. 

“You see those guys? Those are the Runners. And that guy in the middle there? That’s Minho. He’s the Keeper of the Runners. Now every morning, when those doors open, they run the Maze, mapping it, memorizing it, trying to find a way out.”

You felt your skin tingle, your bones light. It almost felt like a speech you knew well. “And before the doors close?”

It was strange, the selective group.

Why not everyone? Why aren't all the boys searching the maze every day, save for maybe the sick and injured?

“They’re already back out before then. Anyone who’s left in there for the night… doesn’t come back out.”

You raised your eyebrows.

“Except you, I suppose.”

You had both paused your walking now, standing calmly amidst the routine.

Newt placed his hands on his hips and turned to face you fully. 

“How did you get in there? From the outside?”

You shook your head. “I woke up in there. Couldn’t remember anything. Still can’t.” You sighed, brushing hair away from your face and rubbing your temples. “I was hoping I’d wake up again and at least know my name, but…”

Nothing.

“You know… most people who join us come up over here.” He pointed to a contraption in the middle of the scene. You followed him over, and observed the pulley box system up close. It wasn’t exactly luxurious, but it seemed a lot more convenient than escaping near death inside of a maze.

“Really?” You asked, brow arched. “So I just got a shit hand?”

“Guess so.”

Newt looked you up and down, eyes lingering on your bandages as he spoke again. 

You followed his eye line and kept talking. “Brutal night too.”

“I noticed.”

You cracked a smile at that.

His eyebrows furrowed, appearing to be deep in thought for a moment, grappling with something. You saw him glance toward Alby, who appeared to be staring at you too.

You shifted uncomfortably, not sure how to continue. 

“So what can I do?” You asked. This was a new chapter for you, though it felt like it was jutting out from the rest of your past. Like it was interrupting the real story. You tried to brush off the number of eyes on you.

Newt smiled and clapped you on the shoulder awkwardly.