Well, I'm horrifically late. What else is new? Junior year, man. Chaos incarnate.

When Minho and a few of the others pushed through the now broken door, Teresa's room was empty, and there was only one unmade bed. Thomas's face scrunched up in confusion.

"This is supposed to be her room." Just as he said that, a toilet flushed from inside the bathroom. Thomas made his way to the door.

"Whoa there, Tommy. I know you're used to living with a bunch of boys, but it's not polite to go stomping into the bloody ladies room. Wait for her to come out," Newt said, leaning against one of the bunk beds. "Here, Minho, bring her over here."

Minho laid Ghost gently on top of one of the mattresses, propping her head up on some pillows. Though hesitant to leave Ghost, he volunteered to go back outside and fetch the other Gladers. Stepping past the yellow door, the disgusting smell of the bodies hit him full force for a second time.

He gagged reflexively at the stench, crossing the room and weaving in between bodies. Minho tried to avoid looking directly at any of them. "You shanks get over here! Why are you all still out here?"

The rest of the Gladers were gathered around the door to their room, some inside with the Cranks, some outside with the bodies. Pick your poison, Minho mused to himself. Possibly cannibalistic crazies or human chandeliers.

"Did you find Ghost and Teresa?" Winston asked from where he was standing against the doorframe. The Gladers all hushed their conversations and focused on Minho, anticipating his answer.

"We found Ghost, but she's unconscious. And we think we might have found Teresa."

"Unconscious?" Frypan raised his eyebrows.

"What happened?" Danny asked.

"Think we know?" Minho shook his head. "Get your butts up and over to the other room. Ain't any Cranks or dead body stink over there."

"Thank God," Max, a fellow runner Minho had known for a long time, said as he got to his feed, his pet newbie Winn following in suit. Minho led the group of Gladers across the commons to the only other open door. There was a set of double doors, but those lead outside into Crank land and the handles had been wrapped in chains and padlocked several times. No way out.

When Minho reached the open yellow door, however, he did not find Teresa inside with Newt, Clint, and Thomas. Instead, there was a third boy; in the same flannel pajamas they were all wearing, with olive skin and very short dark hair.

Once Minho recovered from his surprise enough to speak, he said: "Who's that guy?"

The boys in the room all looked over to where Minho and the rest of the Gladers hovered outside the door. Thomas smiled thinly.

"Minho, meet Aris. Aris, meet Minho."

"I…who…what?"

"Look," Newt said, cutting off any onslaught of questions. "Let's take down all these top beds and move them around the room. Then we can all sit and figure out what's bloody goin' on."

"No, not until we find Teresa," Minho heard Thomas say. "She must be in another room."

"There isn't one."

"What?" Thomas asked, looking at Minho. Minho shrugged, repeating himself.

"There isn't another room. I checked the whole place out. It's just the common area, our dorm, the bathrooms, and some seriously shucked doors leading outside. And this are chained and padlocked from the inside."

"That…that can't be right," Thomas blinked and shook his head. "I mean, the food we ate last night? That had to have come from somewhere."

"Maybe there's a hidden door," Newt suggested. "We can look closer later. Right now we should all just sit and-"

"No!" Thomas demanded. "We have all day to talk to Aris. We need to find Teresa. She could be in danger!"

Without giving anyone a chance to reply, Thomas slipped out the door and back into the commons. Newt sighed, brushing his hair from his face. He seemed tired.

"He'll calm down," Minho said, clapping his oldest friend on the shoulder. "Can you blame him? Everyone knows he has the hots for Teresa."

"And you'd know all about that," Newt muttered under his breath, amused.

Minho blinked. "What's that, shank?"

Newt grinned slightly, but his eyes were still weary. "Nothing. Don't worry about it."

"Damn right," Minho huffed as he helped the rest of the Gladers do as Newt instructed, dismantling the bunk beds and spreading them out so everyone had a place to sit. When Thomas returned, he grabbed a spot next to Minho, near Ghost and Clint, who was staying close to the unconscious Glader. Newt began to fill Minho and the others on the situation at hand and this 'Aris' character.

"So, wait. Lemme get this straight," Minho shook his head. "You," he pointed at Aris. "Come from a giant maze, this one of all girls. You started off in a coma and triggered some shuck 'Ending'?"

Aris nodded. "Yep, that's about it. We escaped a few days ago. The people who rescued us kept us in a big gym until last night, when they moved me here and you sticks showed up."

Thomas frowned, tilting his head slightly. "…Sticks?"

"I don't even know," Aris shrugged. "It's just something the girls in my Maze say."

Minho huffed a laugh and shared a look with Thomas. It appeared that both groups had come up with their own slang words. In all honesty, Minho wasn't even sure how most of their words even came about. Someone mispronouncing a swear word or something, and everyone thinking it was the funniest thing ever and using it jokingly for a while, until it actually became the Glader lingo.

"So it's the same experiment," Minho said. "Or whatever. WICKED built two different Mazes, one of boys and what was supposed to be one girl, and one of girls with one boy. They ran two different tests."

"Could you…" Thomas spoke up. "Could you talk to one of those girls with your mind? Ya know, like, telepathically?"

Aris' eyes widened and he stared at Thomas, who stared back intensely. Minho realized with a start that they were talking to each other; a conversation only they could hear.

"What's going on?" Newt asked, glancing between the two boys. "Why are you staring at each other like you just fell in love."

"He can do it too," Thomas murmured, not breaking eye contact with Aris.

"Do what?" Frypan asked, baffled.

"What do you think?" Minho said, crossing his arms. "He's a freak like Thomas. They can talk in each other's heads."

Newt raised an eyebrow. "Serious?"

"Who killed her? What happened?" Thomas demanded aloud, talking to Aris as if he hadn't heard Newt. Minho blinked rapidly.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Who killed who?" He sighed. "No more of your voodoo klunk while we're around. We have to use our actual words here so, so do you."

Thomas turned to Minho, his eyes glassy and filled with panic. "He said he had someone he could do this with too, just like I did. I mean…like I do. But they killed her. I want to know who they are."

Finally, Minho understood the source of Thomas's anxiety and where his train of thought was going. If WICKED had killed Aris' telepathy partner, and Teresa was now missing…had they done the same to her?

"I don't really know who they are. It's all so confusing, and it's hard to tell the good and bad guys apart. But somehow, they made this girl—Beth—stab my friend, Rachel. She's dead, man."

Aris pressed fists to his eyes, taking a deep breath, while Minho was deep in thought. The parallels were too strong to ignore. Maze kids gone wild, made to kill one of his or her own group members…did that mean Teresa was supposed to have died instead of Chuck? Or was it not so choosey? Were all their deaths just planned out for them?

While Minho was rethinking his existence, Newt was still relentless in his questioning, grilling Aris on everything: how many girls escaped, how he got here, where the others were now, the works. Aris just rubbed his face and didn't answer.

The tension in the room was palpable. Suddenly, Ghost shot up, making everyone in the room jump. Minho nearly had a heart attack.

"Teresa!" She shrieked, panicked. "Teresa!"

Before anybody else, Newt rushed over and grabbed her shoulders, crouching down to be eye level with the girl.

"Ghost," he said, as she struggled against his hold. "Ghost, it's us!"

Ghost stilled at that, cracking an eye open. "Newt?" She sighed in relief, looking around at the other Gladers. "Thank God it's you guys. I thought-" the panicked look returned to her face. "Teresa! They took Teresa!"

Thomas stood abruptly. "Who took her? What happened?"

Newt held up his hands. "Everybody calm down. Ghost, tell us what happened."

Ghost sighed, running her hands through her blonde hair. "I was sleeping, but I had a nightmare. I woke up, in the middle of the night, and there were…people. People in masks; some of them had strange guns. They took Teresa, and they were going to kill me. But something…someone…told them to stop. They knocked me out instead."

The blonde girl looked around the room, across the faces of the Gladers, like she was doing a mental tally. Her shoulders relaxed as she caught sight of Minho and Thomas, as well as Clint and Danny. Her brow creased, though, when her eyes landed on Aris. "Who the hell are you?"

Short chapter, I know. But this one's pretty much just a filler chapter, as I didn't have a ton to add to it. Next shall be better.

Question of the day: What's the weirdest thing you've ever eaten?

My Answer: I ate honey on a pickle yesterday. It was good for some reason, and I don't have any explanation.