I do not own this amazing franchise know as the Maze Runner. All rights go to James Dashner, the author of the Maze Runner, and his publishing company whom he probably sold the rights to. This story is written purely for my entertainment with nothing to do with profit or recognition. "I write what I want to write, I write what amuses me, it's totally for myself."- J.K. Rowling
When Thomas woke up in a dusty and stale elevator shaft, he was extremely confused. It wasn't often that Thomas fell asleep and woke up standing up in any way shape or form, let alone in the musky elevator that Thomas had come to know as the Box; it just didn't happen, ever. So his confusion was most definitely founded, the only question being how the shucking heck did he end up in the Box this time. A muffled curse escaped his mouth as he turned his gaze around the Box. It was the same as last time with ropes, boxes and weapons in different places; it was all exactly the same, not a difference to be seen anywhere. The stale air stung his nostrils.
The harsh grinding of metal ached in Thomas' ears. He winced at the cold sound, instinctively covering his ears as he stumbled back, making an attempt at finding the wall that had to be somewhere behind him. His back pressed against the wall before he slid down it, hands continuing to cover his sensitive ears. He didn't remember it hurting that much last time. But then again, last time he hadn't had a clue what was going on and had withdrawn into his mind within minutes of waking up, something that Thomas wasn't doing this time. A second later, the room jerked upwards causing Thomas to press his hands closer over his ears. Klunk that hurt!
The harsh echoes of chains against pulleys and metal clanking against metal had filled the Box. It was as though the sounds of an ancient factory had been resurrected in the Box purely as torture for the upcoming Gladers to listen to in horror. The echoes bounced around the room with a tinny wail akin to a bad pop star's singing. The lightless Box was swinging then, rocking back and forth. Thomas was thrown to the floor like a ragdoll at the paws of a tiger. For a moment, he lay sprawled on the floor like a dead man before struggling to his feet, hands clutching at the sides of the Box for balance in the swinging hell. The rocking motions was not helping with the already developing headache; the confusion of the situation, noise within it and rocking all added up for a rather nasty headache that Thomas was most certainly not enjoying in any way shape or form. A sudden wave of nausea passed over him causing the boy to retch, a hand resting over his mouth. Where was a glass of water when a shank needed one?
A plan began to form in the disoriented teen's mind. If this really was the Box really heading up to the Glade then he'd have to hide his knowledge of the future if he wanted anything good to come to any of the Gladers. To a certain extent, he'd have to protect the Gladers from the background, for what other reason could he possibly be there for aside from protecting the Gladers. It was definitely better if WICKED didn't know, Thomas understood. It was only the head of WICKED Ava Paige that could be trusted, for even Brenda had proven to be untrustworthy. Through all the time the Gladers spent in WICKED's hands, it was only Paige that had not betrayed them. But hiding knowledge was hard and not one of Thomas' strong points. Of course he could lie and Thomas supposed that would be good enough. Unknowingly, a hand reached for the pile of weapons and grabbed one, a tiny pocket knife, into the piece of cloth wrapped around his wrist so that it was hidden from view.
A long time passed, maybe fifteen minutes before Thomas grew immune to the senseless motions of the Box, stumbling into a corner with rope piled into it to huddle down for the long journey. He rested his chin on his knees as he closed his eyes, forcing his body to relax for just a minute. When said minute had finished, Thomas tensed up again. His bright green eyes surveyed the room carefully. The same boxes, the same weapons, the same everything. Unless something was seriously messing with his mind, Thomas had fallen into the past and he wasn't sure that he liked that. After ten minutes, the Box had begun to slow and five after that, it completely stopped.
A minute passed; the dark air was oppressive. Thomas gazed up at the ceiling, waiting for it to open and for light to poor in. In another minute, Thomas grew bored of sitting and waiting. Placing his best 'I'm scared come save me' voice on, Thomas screamed up at the roof. He slammed a fist into the wall before cursing softly at the agony racing up his arm; never punch a metal wall or any other wall. A long groan escaped his throat like the haunted moan of a dying man as he exhaled his last breath of sweet oxygen. Thomas readied an expression onto his face, fearful and confused with no knowledge of the outside world or of anything but his name.
And right on cue a loud clank rang out, causing Thomas to wince at the loud noise, as the ceiling began to split in two, allowing light to spill in. Thomas set hope on his face. Long, grating sounds filled the air surrounding him as the horizontally sliding doors continued to move to allow light to poor into the once dim Box. The light stabbed ferociously at Thomas' eyes despite his best efforts to cover them. The voices above sounded more intimidating than they had the last time, as though this new world were scarier than Thomas' world.
"Look at that shank."
"How old is he?"
"Looks like a klunk in a T-shirt."
"You're the klunk, shuck-face."
"Dude, it smells like feet down there!"
"Hope you enjoyed the one-way trip, Greenie."
"Ain't no ticket back, bro."
The boys gazed down at Thomas, pointing at him and laughing. They seemed to find Thomas' feigned fear highly amusing. What hypocrites. Thomas struggled to his feet as he gazed up at the other Gladers. In the crowd, Chuck could be seen peaking around an older boy's side. John appeared irritated with the twelve-year-old. Alby's head was tilted back slightly as he gazed down disapprovingly at Thomas; he seemed to think that the sandy-haired boy would be good for nothing. Hairy Frypan looked delighted at the idea of a new Greenie no matter what the other boy's seemed to think. He could use some help in the kitchens; he always could.
A vine rope was lowered into the Box with a loop tied at the end. Edgier than normal, Thomas stepped into it before allowing himself to be hauled up; the Gladers surrounded him, pulling Thomas to his feet and brushing the dust from his clothes. Despite his best efforts, the world was a chaotic spin of faces and colours and shapes. It was a meaningless blur like the harsh darkness of the Box only worse and filled with eye-shattering colour.
"Nice to meet ya, shank," a teen, Alby, said. "Welcome to the Glade."
Thomas had fallen into repeat; Gally's cold remarks at Thomas' examining of the Glade, the constant and intimidating stares from all around before Thomas turned his green eyes to lock on Alby. "Where am I?" He asked with his voice scarcely able to be heard over the bustling wind in the Glade. And Alby replied just as he had before, with a simple sentence that both would have explained the situation to Thomas and soothed him slightly all at once had Thomas not have already lived the reality he seemed to be living then. It was all rather confusing to the boy. The arguing of the Gladers continued, none of it helping the headache that refused to leave Thomas alone.
Every detail of the Glade was identical; the hewn stone blocks settled into place identical as they had when Thomas had first been in the Glade. The forests in one corner looked just as frail as they had before; each tree appeared not to have had water in months, which was largely true. It never rained in the indoor facility that was the Glade. Creeping shadows cast by the walls refused to allow knowledge of the time; it could have been anywhere between six in the morning to six at night, for that was the twelve hour span in which the doors were open and the 'sun' in the 'sky'. The soothing scents of freshly turned earth, fertilizer and pine reached Thomas as he took a falsely shuddering breath. The sky above was cloudless and blue though without a sight of the sun in the sky, which should have been impossible but Thomas knew WICKED well enough to know that they had found a way to make light from nothing. Very annoying.
Rolling his green gaze back to the Gladers, he noted Alby looking ready to stab him with a knife and mentally reminded himself of the knife he had up his sleeve.
Gathering his breath in order to make an attempt at pretending to sooth himself, Thomas spoke. "Why are we in a stone box?" His voice trembled strangely, as though he were trying to imitate the gurgle of water in a streem. At the oddest of moments, a word popped into his head; 'captors'. A confused frown caressed his forehead as he tried to recall the reasoning behind the word. Ah, yes. Upon first arriving in the Glade, Thomas had thought that the brave boys were his captors, the reasons for all of his trouble. "And who are you people? Why are we here?"
"And that ain't nobody know, shank; it's a long story. Piece-by-piece, you'll learn. Someone'll show ya 'round tomorrow... Till then just don't break anything." Alby held out a hand. "Name's Alby."
'Think Thomas!' He roared at himself. 'What did you do?!' Quite abruptly, Thomas allowed himself to slink back to a state of calm, forcing everything he knew backwards and into a container that was labelled 'THE FUTURE', in all capitals to capture his attention if need be. Glancing down at the offered hand, Thomas hesitantly shook it with a slightly slack grip. Alby's hand shake was firm but not overly harsh despite his large, hulking appearance. "T-Thomas," he managed to fake stutter out. He added desperation to his voice in the next sentence; "Is there anything you can tell me? Please, just anything?" He'd managed to ignore the surrounding Gladers.
A faint smile tugged at Alby's lips. He seemed to enjoy Thomas' discomfort at the situation. "Look Greenbean, Thomas, if you ain't scared you ain't human and if you ain't human, you're a psycho. The Glade's got no room for free-loaders or psychos. We throw 'em of the Cliff."
Thomas shrank back, sure that Alby would be more than willing to throw him from the Cliff; the only hope Thomas would have would be to fall through the Griever hole, which was unlikely; it had taken him and Minho at least 100 tries to get it right. It hadn't been easy to do in the slightest, though they had eventually found the flat-trans after a good hour of throwing stones. Very irritating to say the least, but possible nonetheless.
But that wasn't the point; the point was Alby was a shucking scary and downright suicidal maniac. He had no self control. To be honest, it was a wonder that Alby had become leader in the first place. One would think that the prodigies within the Glade were smart enough to choose a sane leader. Evidently not.
Thomas found himself taking a tiny step backwards as Alby stared at him. "The- the Cliff?" The capital letter hung in his words. Itching to pull the knife he had grabbed, Thomas fiddled nervously with the wrist band, fingering the rough fabric with long fingers. The pocket knife slipped casually into his grasp as he continued to fiddle with the fabric.
Frowning, Alby replied with an irritated sigh, grabbing Thomas' T-shirt to lift him from the ground before slamming Thomas into a tree he hadn't known was there. Panic consumed him. The knife in his grasp moved all on its own, burying into Alby's arm to receive a shriek of anger and agony.
"Ah klunk," Thomas mumbled as he was dropped, spinning on his feet to run for the opening to the Maze.
Swift as a Griever, something was sprinting from the Maze towards Thomas, soon blocking his path to the Maze. Something was circling behind him, too; panic filled Thomas. Snarling, he charged the first figure, knife filling his right hand with a powerful warmth. "What is going on?!" He snapped, scared and confused at the repetition.
Squeaking, the figure dodged the blade. "Slim it, Shuck-face!" He popped back up, gazing at Thomas in irritation. "Nobody's getting hurt if you slim it."
"Who are you?" Thomas shouted at him, lunging past him towards the Maze. The figure stepped into his path once again to prevent Thomas from going any farther, palms raised in a gesture of peace.
Tall and toned, the figure stood maybe a little taller than Thomas himself. Shaggy red-streaked chocolate hair hung over swirling milk chocolate eyes. He was deeply tanned to the colour of pale hot chocolate. His paleness was unusual in the sun-scorched world. The blood drained from Thomas' face. The pale palms were the final indication. His voice failed him.
"My name is Ben," the boy soothed keeping his hands in clear sight and away from the tiny throwing knives strapped to his runner pack. "I'm not gonna hurt'cha." The pale hands remained raised in surrender as Ben took a tiny step closer to Thomas, quite effectively distracting him. Something latched onto his arms, from behind, pulling both behind his back with an arm latched in his elbows. A hand rested over Thomas' eyes, firm yet not painful.
"Calm," the boy assured in a strange accent Thomas hadn't heard in a long time. "Fight n' panic's not doing anyone any good. Best for you to just relax now."
Through the mass of fear and confusion, Thomas whimpered out a few words. "Who are you?" His voice was a pathetic whine.
"My name is Newt now, please relax Greenie, please."
The trigger pulled Thomas away from the panic and away from his long-since dead friend.