Randomly visited by the Plot Bunny today. It produced this lovely gem... Her name, if you didn't notice by the description, is Rie. She is my OC, and you pronounce it like Ree. As in Marie Curie, the scientist... I went with Dashner's theme and gave her a unique name based off a high achieving historical figure. Do you guys like the idea of a Glader being accidentally left behind in the Maze during the escape? I thought it'd be interesting!

Rie has been in the Glade since ... a month before Chuck. Chuck came a month before Thomas. Let's see, what else? It's mostly movie-verse! Sorry if that disappoints anyone. I just like the way that flows more. And... obviously this will be set during Scorch Trials. I haven't read the book; only saw the movie. I've read the first book but that's all. Okay then... without any further ado, here we go!

And please PLEASE leave a review to let me know what you think!

"It won't open!" Teresa cried from behind us. Adrenaline numbed the burning in my arms, legs and chest, but it could do nothing for the panic that laced through my veins at her proclamation. I held my ground beside Minho and Thomas, jabbing the spear up at the Griever's long spindly leg. It was sharp and thick, and it pierced the concrete next to us before it rose again and took aim.

"Thomas!" She screamed, right as he pulled me out of the path of a plunging leg. He gave me a quick, fleeting pat as he turned almost instinctively towards Teresa's voice, and I felt a flare of acidic, poisonous jealousy even as one of the Grievers knelt down to scream at us, its green, slimy face baring impossibly sharp teeth that lined its mouth.

I screamed back and swiped my spear at it.

"It needs a code! Eight numbers!"

"Eight sections to the maze," Thomas muttered beside me, and I spared a moment to give him a wide-eyed glance.

"Minho!" We chorused, causing the dark haired Keeper to fumble with his spear for a moment. Another Glader stepped in to block one of the Grievers' legs for him, and Minho glared over his shoulder at us. "What's the sequence to the Maze?" Thomas continued.

"What!?" Miho's voice was high as he barely dodged the sharp leg of a Griever before it cut his throat. He staggered back and jabbed his spear out.

"The sequence to the sections of the Maze! What's the sequence?"

"Ah, seven—" He started, and I watched as he struggled to both fight the Griever and call out the sequence—which happened to be our ticket out. So I rushed forward, spear-first, and began to stab with him. Together, we were able to fight the Griever back farther than he could've done alone, and he threw me a grateful look. "Five! One, two—uh—six, four—"

"Look out!" Newt called, but it was too late. A Griever's leg was poised straight over my head. I had just enough time to hop back before it could pierce my hands, but the spear was lost. It rolled under the Grievers' body, and I scrambled back.

Beside me, Minho was pinned underneath a different Griever with only his spear serving to hold it back from his face, and someone from the crowd behind us scrambled forward with a battle cry and jammed a spike deep into its head. The two flanking it screeched in fury and turned their attention onto him. Catching a glimpse of a white shirt, dark skin and black hair, I had just enough time to realize it was Jeff before the Grievers pinched him between their legs and flung him over the sides.

A scream tore from me, dragging the attention of the closest Griever straight back to me—and I swear it smiled lecherously as it moved almost supernaturally fast, its legs splinking against the concrete as it skittered towards me.

I screamed Thomas's name with pure, unadulterated horror scraping my throat raw as one of the legs came sailing down, and it's like my whole world slowed for a moment.

I watched, with startling clarity, as the jointed limb of the spindly leg came arcing through the air—down, down, down… crashing into my calf, impaling it and plucking me up from the walkway as though I was nothing but a toy. It swung me around and I caught a brief, blurred glimpse of the group screaming for me. Thomas's horrified face, cloaked with disbelief and denial as he watched me, was the last thing I saw before I was plunged over the side of the walkway and into darkness.

For the second time in my life, I gasped awake to complete, consuming blackness. It absorbed everything around me and I ground out a pained scream when a flare of agony lit a fiery path up my calf. I whimpered pathetically as my mind raced to explain my current state.

My calf feels like its being eaten alive by fire ants because… a Griever got me. Is this a sting? Is this what a sting feels like? Am I going to die?

A lump tightened in my throat as I realized how close I'd been. Literally breathing distanceaway from the exit, and I was taken out of the game. Anger swelled in my gut, coupled with a bitter spark of hope and envy. Did the others make it? Are they out? Where are they now?

"Thomas!" I impulsively called out. I heard the sound of something scraping metal nearby, sucking all the hope and confidence straight out of me. My mouth clamped shut as I owlishly blinked into the blackness.

No one answered, and I didn't hear another sound as I struggled to explain my surroundings. I'm alone because… I was thrown over the edge. The others must think I'm dead.

Wait—am I dead? I let out a shuddering cry, unable to sustain the intense emotion that flitted through me at that last thought. My head darted all around as I patted the floor around me.

It was concrete, the same texture as the Maze. Is that where I am? Am I still in the Maze?

I blindly patted and scooted my injured leg back, swallowing my whimpers and cries as white-hot pain laced through my muscle. My leg felt damp, though the stale air didn't move much, and the skin around my calf was burning feverishly.

I pushed it to the back of my mind. Putting my hands up, I gingerly felt above me. Nothing was over my head. There was nothing in front of me or beside me, and I even stretched my arms backwards.

My hands hit something metal, cool to the touch, and I gasped and jerked them back to cradle them against my chest as I almost fell on my face in my haste to get away. My heart thudded in my ears as I waited, holding my breath and trying not to think too hard about the insistent pain that tingled in my leg as I futilely tried to see in the dark.

I heard the sound of metal scraping again, and though there was no proof, I panicked and immediately thought Griever. So, with that spurring me on, I lunged forward and brought my hands underneath me.

Reaching back to touch my calf, I winced at the sting that my fingers brought. I didn't want to touch it, but I couldn't see to tell how bad it was. I ran my finger along the perimeter of the wound. My capris were tattered, torn open by what must have been the Griever's stinger after all.

A fresh wave of sickness rolled over me. It's true, then. I'd been stung. I figured it was only a matter of time before the fever took me, but in the mean time, I'm not going out without a fight—and I'm not going out stuck in the dark. I've come too far.

Minding whatever was rustling nearby, I dragged myself until I was facing whatever I'd touched earlier. It was smooth and metal; clearly man-made. Off the edge of it was more cement. It went up as high as I could reach without standing, the edges protruding from the wall like… like a—like a door?

I frowned and ran my hand over the smooth surface again, pressing my fingers in the angled edges. It is. It's a door.

I put both of my hands to the frame and ran them up. I could feel no hinges along the edges; no knob or lever. Even though I was confused, I wasn't about to drop this, so I gathered my legs under me as best I could and used mostly my arms to push up.

I leaned into the door and tried to contain my strangled grunts of agony as my calf sang with pain. It actually gave, something inside snapping and feeling distinctly damaged and I wondered if the Griever had done more than sting me—it might've broken my shin—but I barely had the time to form the thought before there was a hydraulic hiss and the door suddenly sank.

I lost my balance as the cool metal rapidly plunged into the floor and I fell forward with a resounding thud.

My eyes blinked widely at the sudden light. It was strangely blue, but that's not right. Artificial light had become foreign and alien to my eyes. I'd only spent a little over two months in the Glade, but I couldn't recall the last time I'd seen artificial lighting.

I gasped and scrambled forward when whatever had been rustling nearby started crawling towards the door. As soon as I'd completely crossed the threshold, the metal door let out a hiss and rocketed out from the ground—closing whatever had been making its mad haste towards me outside. And me inside.

I drew a panicked breath and looked over my shoulder. It occurred to me that the room was actually fairly dimly lit. Most of the light fixtures were hanging off the ceiling, dangling only by a few wires and sending showers of sparks down to the floor. There was a faraway sounding alarm that was going off, as if an accident had happened or something was wrong. The floor was a strange texture. Metal grating covered by some sort of grey hard surface that I couldn't begin to identify—a stark contrast to the dirt I'd grown almost fond of.

It was cool under my sweaty, filthy skin. I turned over, hissing at the pain through my teeth as I dragged myself into a sitting position. I almost leaned against the door—but then I remembered what happened the last time I did that, so I settled for sitting up to look around some more.

There was a table in the middle of the room with overturned chairs. Things were lying in the floor—technology that looked like the glass monitors that made up some of the walls, but smaller and shattered. Some of the glass walls had been shattered, leaving bright blue and sparkling white shards coating the floor around it.

Also at the ceiling were pipes, and it seemed that when the light fixtures had been damaged, so had the pipes. Steam and smoke whistled out of them and filled the room a bit.

I turned to the large glass display of monitors. In the bright projections were pictures of what appeared to be the Maze—more specifically, the sections. I squinted my eyes and turned my body, looking over all the different sections, searching for the one that held the exit.

It seemed that whenever the others had finally managed to put in the correct code, the walls had come down just in the knick of time and apparently smashed the Grievers. If their spilled, slimy green and brown guts were anything to go by, at least.

Good.

I took a deep breath and pulled myself over to a chair, using it as leverage to stand. The legs of the chair had wheels on them—which made it more difficult to stand up, but once I was up I pushed it against the table and swung my bad leg up as carefully as I could, using the chair as my other leg as I awkwardly stepped, and scooted. Stepped, and scooted. I moved until I was close enough to continue to look over the monitors.

The Maze was suspiciously still. No Grievers were out anymore. Nothing moved; not even so much as a breeze was rolling through. It looked almost like pictures—and I'd have thought they were, was it not for the blinking lights that came from the innards of the smushed Grievers and the other blinking lights hidden in the ivy on the walls.

Apparently, the blinking lights in the walls were cameras all along. I remember spending hours staring up at the ones I could see in the Glade, wondering what it was—wondering if it was some sort of safety precaution. Naively, I hoped maybe someone was looking out for us. That perhaps—if everything went south or something—someone would somehow know, and they would come to rescue us.

Silly girl.

There were more things on the monitors. Things I didn't understand. Like what looked like an x-ray of a head, showing the brain, and light was travelling through it. It seemed to be following some sort of pattern, like it was on a loop. Were they monitoring our brains?

Good God, who are these people? What do they want?

Disgusted and overcome with anger, I pushed the chair and took slow, strenuous and staggering steps towards the shattered walls. I pushed the chair out what might've once been a door, but was now just a frame, and my eyes widened as the alarms grew louder and I spotted the sight of several dead bodies lying in the floors.

They were crumpled. They were humans. They'd once been living, breathing people, and now they're crumpled on the floor like—like…

I couldn't even find the words to compare it to anything. Nothing came to mind. Fear crept inside me as I looked at their defeated bodies, in white coats—propped in corners where they'd apparently been trapped, just like they'd trapped us—their blood painting the walls behind them, pooling on the floors beneath them—it's too much. No, it's worse: they're adults. They're the ones who are supposed to run the show. They're the ones who are supposed to know what's best for me. But they've been killed—they've been slaughtered. If the same people who'd been keeping us in the Maze are dead, what would happen to me? Who could have killed them?

Oh, God. What happened to the others!? If they made it out—and I think they must have—where did they go? Where are they now? Did they run into whoever did this? Were they crumpled somewhere, too?

Thomas's slumped form streaked through my mind, and I squeezed my eyes shut and let out a strangled cry.

My heart was thrumming in my neck and ears, and I was breathing rapidly as I tripped around the corner of a huge desk of monitors. Everywhere I looked—evidence of what had been done to me was staring back at me from the monitors. Dead bodies were lying in the floor. The chair got away from me and I almost fell, but as I passed in front of one of the computers, a giant monitor blinked to life and I froze.

The image of a woman came over the screen and her voice trickled through the room.

"Hello. My name is Doctor Ava Paige," I recoiled at the surround sound; her voice was everywhere. Anger and bitterness rose in my throat as I looked up at her smug, cool, collected visage. She was wearing makeup. Fucking lipstick. "I'm Director of Operations of the World Catastrophe: Killzone Department." My fists clenched. She's the one in charge. She's the one who put us here, who stuck me in—without asking—I could barely focus on her words through my red-hazed anger. It's the only emotion I could feel without falling into the chair and sobbing, so I grabbed it like an anchor, and it dragged me down. "If you're watching this that means you've successfully completed the Maze Trials." She said this proudly almost, as if she was pleased with my being there.

Her words registered. Completed the Maze Trials.

Trials.

It was all a farce.

Cutting out a guttural growl, I turned away as she went on, arrogantly assuming that I'd sit still long enough to listen to whatever she had to fucking tell me—but you know what? She can go straight to hell. Her and all these crumpled bodies, too.

As I scooted and limped through the debris lying at my feet, a sick sort of satisfaction welled within me when I looked at the dead bodies now. So what, they're dead? Good riddance! Who do they think they are?!

Absently, I did listen to what she was saying. After all, the surround sound made it impossible not to. So I heard all about how the earth was scorched up by the sun. I heard all about how the very thing that was supposed to give us life, that was supposed to sustain us and nurture our well being turned on us. How it took everything we loved from us and set us down a path that we were still scrambling to answers for.

Sound familiar?

"We call it the Flare; a deadly virus that attacks the brain. It is violent. Unpredictable… incurable." She paused for dramatic effect, lifting her chin. "Or so we thought."

The images of that poor infected man, the veins in his face going black and his entire head going pink as the blood rushed up and he screamed like it was the only thing he could do to stay alive, would haunt my dreams forever. His eyes were blackened and his teeth looked almost decayed, and all I could see were the two hands on at the sides of his head holding him in place while he was lying on some sort of metal table. Doctor Ava Paige continued, justifying why she stuck us in the Maze for what she basically painted as the better of mankind.

I had just enough time to get angry again when they came.

Sounds of a door bursting open behind me, sudden blare of sound—white light pouring into the lab. Men were running towards me—actual adults. The first adults I'd seen in real life… for as long as I could remember. Their silhouettes looked like soldiers. They held something in their hands, some sort of device that my brain was quick to identify as guns and they were running at me.

Yelling at me to freeze, stay where I was. I stumbled back in surprise and lost my balance. A scream ripped from my already raw throat and my heart took off at a sprint as I fell backwards.

My head collided painfully with a desk behind me, and I bounced off it and into the floor. I gasped in pain and writhed on my side, my calf singing with so much pain that I almost wish it'd been totally severed so I could've just bled out. I opened my eyes as hands gripped my shoulders and hauled me up.

But I caught sight of something—a head of curly hair. I was screaming for a new reason, as my stomach sank to my toes and I realized it hadn't just been adults in white coats lying crumpled around me. It was my own people, the Glader—my first and youngest friend in the Glade. Chuck.

As the men grabbed me by my arms and lifted me, I bucked wildly against them—kicking in spite of the pain as I screamed Chuck's name and sobbed like my heart had been torn from my chest. Chuck couldn't be dead! It's absolutely ludicrous! He's the most—innocent—in all of this? He couldn't be dead!

But the red splotch on his chest said otherwise. And not far from his body, I saw another one of us. Gally. The one who'd been so reluctant to leave the Glade. I felt dizzied with the tragedy that was being thrown at my head, blow after blow that my heart was being forced to take.

They dragged me outside and towards a helicopter. Sand and sunlight blasted me full-force. I clamped my mouth shut, only because if it was open then the sand flew straight in, and I got a lungful of sand because of it. I bent over and my body heaved from the force of my coughs, and I choked on my own sobs.

Too much. It's too much. I drew in a deep, earth shattering breath as they dragged me through the sand and my open wound was coated with stinging grit.

They passed me into the waiting arms of another soldier, pushing me into the helicopter even as I lost the strength to fight them anymore. I was simply weeping now, crying and overcome with grief for my fallen comrades, and lamenting my missing ones.

And I think they might've reassured me that I was safe. One of them had long brown hair and a hooked nose, and his eyes were brown like Thomas's—but the wrong kind of brown. They were too dark. Black, almost, and he turned back to tell me something.

His words slowly registered in my mind.

This will only hurt for a minute.

He gestured to a nearby soldier, as the helicopter lifted off the ground and we all swayed to the side—but they seemed used to it and had no trouble correcting themselves and finding their balance as the helicopter ascended, and they sat me down and grabbed me by my ankle and my knee.

I didn't think to fight them. At least, not until they produced a huge fucking syringe and brought it down towards my leg.

I caught sight of it for the first time. The skin around it had turned a throbbing black, already the fever having started to take its course. It pulsated and he lowered the needle against my thrashing leg as another man was holding me down—pinning me in place as he continuously repeated that this was for my own good, that if they didn't, I would die, and is that what I want? Because if not, stop fighting them—and they stuck the needle in my leg and injected me with something that sent cool spindles through my veins and made the side of my calf go numb.

"You're safe now." His voice sounded faraway, like he was speaking to me through a tunnel. I blinked up at him and I might've I whispered something as my world faded to black.