Disclaimer: I don't own any characters from the Maze Runner series nor any recognizable storylines from the novels/movies. I only own my character(s) and basic plot of this story. This is rated T for language and mature scenes.


day four—three years ago

It was as if a routine had placed itself between her and Newt as she squinted tiredly up at him the following morning when he came to wake her up for another day, only to see that she was already awake.

Her mind felt hazy and she was sure there were bags under her eyes that looked puffy and bruised from lack of sleep. Newt's eyebrows pinched together when he saw her but he didn't say anything this time and instead ushered her up to grab some breakfast before beginning her day with him at the gardens.

She trailed slowly after him. Her body ached all over from her restless night. Her mind had been poisoned with night terrors and it was taking its toll on her, both physically and mentally. There was still a vague scent of iron in her nose that she couldn't escape and her stomach twisted a bit when she saw the plates of bacon awaiting them at the kitchen. She grabbed a plate anyway, too tired to bother with grimacing at its contents.

When they sat down, Newt simply took the pieces of bacon off her plate and exchanged them with his eggs.

"Doesn't mean you get to eat any less," he commented easy enough, though there was a slight undertone of warning in his voice that said he expected her to eat everything on her plate.

It took them twice as long to eat as usual because she kept picking at her food and when they finally made it to the gardens everyone else was already hard at work.

She watched absently as Newt explained to her how to prepare the soil for vegetables. He demonstrated how to smooth the soil with a rake and then explained to her the proper amount of fertilizer to use for each section.

She felt like she was watching everything through a film, like she wasn't really there. Her mind was off in some faraway place but Newt's voice tethered her to reality and occasionally she was able to hone in on his words, usually when he was already halfway through a sentence. She nodded every time he looked up at her expectantly, as if checking to make sure she was still paying attention.

He then asked her to repeat the steps he showed her. She raked the soil as she'd seen him do, body on autopilot as it mimicked his methods of smoothing the dirt. He seemed surprised that she'd gotten the hang of it so fast, as if he didn't really believe she'd been paying attention at all. In the back of her mind she was also a bit taken aback at the information her mind managed to retain because she really only heard half of what he said. She liked to assume that raking soil wasn't rocket science though and that she hadn't made that big of an accomplishment.

"There you go, you got it," Newt said appreciatively. He gave her a good-natured slap on the shoulder to which she smiled mechanically at.

Newt observed her for a few minutes, arms crossed as he leaned on his good leg until he didn't seem to think she needed anymore supervision. He left her to rake and fertilize on her own for a bit while he checked on the other Track-hoes and she was left with her thoughts.

Her arms continued to rake the soil but her eyes didn't see the dirt in front of her. She didn't feel like herself. But that was the thing, wasn't it? She didn't really know how she normally felt, did she? So how did she know what being normal really felt like?

Her mind felt disconnected with her body and she couldn't stop it from wandering as she continued to rake. Her nerves felt frayed and wiry and tight, like a rubber band that was being stretched too far. At any minute she felt like she was going to snap and it was a feeling she couldn't suppress no matter how hard she tried. She managed to take most of it out on the soil, raking more viciously than she needed to. The indents in the dirt were sharp and jagged and not at all like Newt's, which were all straight lines and neatness.

It was already beginning to feel slightly warm outside despite the earliness of the morning and she paused her work to lean against the rake, already sweating. Her hands were shaking and she couldn't tell if it was from the exertion or something else bubbling beneath the surface

She took this time to admire the view of the Glade, having only been able to do it once after first climbing out of the Box however long ago it was now. The green trees were swaying in the gentle breeze, tall grass billowing off in the distance and permeating the air with freshness. The sky was slowly transitioning from a warm orange to a light blue. She could see kids over by the Bloodhouse carrying planks of wood with tool belts around their waists. Smoke was coating the roof of the kitchen and floating skyward as the kid – what was his name again? – began cooking lunch.

Everything seemed relatively normal within the Glade, like everything was as it was supposed to be, and that was exactly what made it not normal at all.

Because she couldn't hear any birds chirping. Aside from idle chatter and the rustling of the leaves, there was no background noise. It was unsettling. It reminded her that none of this was actually normal. It was all staged, fabricated by the Creators. The wind was probably only blowing because they wanted it to be. She wasn't even sure the sky was real. It could've been some sort of simulation and they'd be none the wiser. The smell of the grass could've just been inside their heads. It was amazing what the mind could conjure up, how much it could distort what you perceived as real. It felt like she was holding a rake in her hands, but was she really? Or was it just some figment of her imagination?

How did she know that any of this was actually real?

What was her name?

She hadn't realized she'd been clenching the rake tighter and tighter in her fists until a splinter of wood broke off into her finger and she winced, hand jerking out of reflex and sucking her back into reality.

She rested the rake against her collarbone as she cradled her injured finger with the other, seeing a tiny dot of blood on the inside of her pointer finger with a small piece of wood sticking out of it, nearly as thin as a strand of hair. She bit the inside of her cheek and carefully pulled the splinter out, holding it close in her line of sight as she gazed at it thoughtfully before trailing her eyes to the small cut it'd made. She tilted her head as she watched the speck of blood dry against her skin. When she moved her finger, the area stung as the skin pulled.

That had to have meant it was real, right? If it weren't, she wouldn't have felt the pain.

"Greenie?" Newt's voice penetrated her thoughts and she jumped a bit, dropping the splinter.

She spun around to face him and he was eyeing her carefully as he made his way over to her.

"You alright?" he asked when he reached her. She nodded, wiping her palms off on her pants before gripping the rake again. Newt seemed skeptical but he gestured her towards him with his hand. "Nice job. C'mon, let's go pick some tomatoes."

Despite the foreign heaviness in her stomach, she smiled a little at this. His accent made the word sound like ta-mah-toes.

She followed Newt around for the remainder of the morning, doing as he said without question because it didn't make her sick to pick vegetables or plant seeds. Newt ended up giving her some sunscreen as he'd mentioned the night before and something about the scent of it seemed familiar to her as she applied it to her shoulders and face. She could hear the sound of water crashing upon a shore in her ears and the scent of salt water and seaweed. It was gone as quickly as it came but it felt like it'd given her whiplash and she had to take a moment to recover from it.

It bothered her for the rest of the morning and through lunch as she snacked on the tomatoes and carrots she picked earlier after rinsing them. Newt was chatting away to someone she didn't recognize and she didn't bother to listen in on the conversation or try to contribute, couldn't even remember if Newt had introduced her to the person or not. Newt seemed to notice how detached she was but she didn't pay it much mind and he didn't comment on it which was just fine with her. All her mind was able to focus on were the roaring waves echoing in her eardrums and the phantom feeling of cold water spraying her skin.

"You ready to shave some of the corn?" Newt asked after they finished their food. She shrugged because she didn't have a clue what it meant to shave corn and she figured she didn't really have a say in it anyway.

After saying goodbye to the kid she may or may not have met, Newt guided her to a set of wooden logs splayed against the borders of the woods, buckets placed in front of them in a line. Two were filled to the brim with ears of corn. Three of them were empty. Newt swung his leg over and took a seat and she followed suit.

"Pretty self-explanatory," he said as he picked up an ear of corn. He began to peel away its green outer shell and deposited the pieces in one of the empty buckets. Once it was clean, he tossed the corn into another empty bucket. He then raised his eyebrows at her. "Got it?"

"Self-explanatory," she repeated and he grinned.

He took one full bucket and she took the other and they peeled in silence. The afternoon sun was brutal and relentless as its rays pierced their skin and she found herself dripping with sweat, her shirt sticking to her skin unpleasantly and making her itch.

Newt glanced over at her carefully when he was halfway through his corn pile and he eyed a spot on one of her shoulders.

"Might want to grab more sunblock, looks like your shoulders are burning," he said. It was a casual thing to say but something about it caused a ringing in her ears and she had to stop peeling the corn.

She could hear a voice, a woman's voice, berating her, "Your shoulders are going to burn if you don't wear sunscreen, young lady!"

And then another voice, a male voice, chimed in immediately after, "Better watch out. Don't wanna get scorched."

She blinked and the voices were gone as soon as they came but something about them unsettled her. She tried ignoring the feeling but no matter how much she tried to just peel the corn and forget about what she heard, the voices kept playing over and over again inside her head.

"Your shoulders are going to burn if you don't wear sunscreen, young lady!"

"Better watch out. Don't wanna get scorched."

"Your shoulders are going to burn if you don't wear sunscreen, young lady!"

"Better watch out. Don't wanna get scorched."

She shook her head as if the act would physically force the words out of her head but they continued to rattle around in her mind to the point where it was almost unbearable.

"Your shoulders are going to burn if you don't wear sunscreen, young lady!"

"Better watch out. Don't wanna get scorched."

"Your shoulders are going to burn if you don't wear sunscreen, young lady!"

"Better watch out. Don't wanna get scorched."

She sucked in an uneven breath and whispered to herself, "I can't do this."

Her hands shook so severely that she dropped the half-peeled ear of corn in the grass and Newt's fingers paused on his own corn as his eyes flashed over to her still form. When he saw the haunted look on her face he sat up taller, realizing that something else was going on beyond just being clumsy. He opened his mouth to say something but she quickly shook her head again.

"Better watch out. Don't wanna get scorched."

"Better watch out. Don't wanna get scorched."

"No, I can't do this. I can't—I can't do this."

She stood from the log and her legs felt like jelly as she pushed herself away from the buckets, stumbling slightly into the woods and bracing herself on a tree trunk. Her hands curled around her scalp, pulling at her hair as the words continued to echo through her brain like a broken record.

"Your shoulders are going to burn if you don't wear sunscreen, young lady!"

"Better watch out. Don't wanna get scorched."

Her eyes were wide and unseeing, filling with tears. Her breathing came in spurts, rattling her chest and lungs.

"Greenie?" Newt demanded, marching over to her. Her body leaned towards the direction his voice came from and she rested a shoulder against the trunk.

Once he reached her he gripped her shoulders to steady her form.

"I can't do this," she said again, voice edging on hysteric. Newt's brows furrowed as he reached her but she barely noticed he was there. "I can't be here. I can't pretend that everything's okay, Newt. Nothing's okay. I'm not okay. I feel like nothing's real! I keep getting these weird flashes of things that I feel like I should remember but I don't and it's terrifying," her wild eyes finally met Newt's and his gaze was both intense and cautious as he listened to her ramble, almost as if he'd heard it all before. Her voice dropped to a shaky whisper. "What if none of this is actually happening? What if the Creators have me in some sort of test tube and they're running experiments on my brain? What if we're all really just trapped in a lab somewhere unconscious as they mess with our heads? Newt, I can't do this.. I can't. I can't. I—"

"Listen to me," he shook her shoulders and her words caught in her throat with a stutter. Once Newt was certain he had her attention, he pulled her hands out of her hair, wrapping his fingers around her tight fists. He watched their linked hands for a moment before he squeezed them and looked back up at her, brown eyes bright and alert. "None of this is normal. Not one damn thing. This place isn't normal. But the way you're acting," his lips turned upward just the tiniest bit and it was so fleeting that she almost told herself it wasn't a smile, "it's completely normal. Everyone here feels like they're going mad at first. None of it makes sense and none of us have any answers. Not even Nick. But one thing I can tell you is for certain…"

He held her hands tighter and she licked her lips. Newt held her steady, kept her gaze on his.

"It's that we are all here with you. You're not in a lab, no one is poking and prodding at your bleeding brain. You have us. I promise you. You are not alone. And you're not crazy either."

Newt was silent for a moment as he looked at her, eyes darting back and forth along the contours of her face like he was contemplating something. He pursed his lips.

"You wanna know how I got my limp?" he asked, voice rough and hoarse.

She blinked at him and clenched her fists tighter. Their noses were only inches apart and she could feel the air hitting her face as he breathed through his nose.

"I was a Runner once," he started, eyes faraway like he was reliving the memory. "When I was in the maze one day, I'd had enough. Decided I couldn't do it. I told myself over and over that this was it. I couldn't live like that, couldn't stand being trapped. Felt like I was being suffocated every damn day. Kind of got it stuck inside my head that maybe I was dreaming all of it, you know? Figured maybe if I could just force myself to wake up, everything would be alright. I wasn't thinking clearly, just felt fed up and needed to do something. Thought that if I did something drastic enough, maybe everything would just fade away.

"So I climbed the wall, right? I climbed as high as I could," he shrugged a halfhearted shoulder. "Didn't get very far, made it about a third of the way up. But I figured it was good enough," her breathing was labored and heavy as her heart palpated beneath their linked hands goosebumps rising along her flesh at his words. "I just jumped. Wanted to get it over with. Obviously didn't finish the job since I'm still here. Just left with a bloody limp to remember it by because my leg never healed quite right after."

She swallowed thickly once his eyes met hers again and she couldn't mistake the tears that were glistening in his eyes, but they never fell. He clenched his jaw once, twice.

"You're the spitting image of how I looked when I took the fall. It's damn near scary how much you remind me of myself," he squeezed her fists again, prying her fingers apart and soothing the indents her nails left on her palms. "That's why I'm here to tell you right now that you need to stop. There's no easy way to deal with this, but I'm asking—I'm telling you to not panic. Don't end up like me with a banged up leg. It's just a reminder of how much of a coward I was. Even if we get out of here one day it's something I'm always gonna have to live with," he shook his head dejectedly and a tear rolled down her cheek. "I don't want you to end up the same way. No scars, yeah?"

His thumbs caressed the outside of her wrists and she sniffed wetly. "I don't think you're a coward."

Newt quirked an eyebrow. "Thanks for that."

They stood in silence for a minute or two. She was trying to calm her racing heart and could feel a headache pulsing behind her eyes. Newt was watching her carefully, his fingers on her wrists probably able to feel her fast pulse. He continued to gently stroke the skin with the pads of his thumbs and it calmed her.

"I don't want to be a Runner," she said finally.

Newt's gaze didn't waver. "Okay."

"Okay," she licked her lips again.

It was then that the close proximity began to make her head swim. Newt must have noticed her unease because he backed away, giving her room to breathe, and his hands held hers for a second longer before dropping them. She leaned all her weight back against the tree, sniffing again and wiping her eyes that felt itchy from the drying tears.

"You good?" Newt asked. She took a deep breath before nodding slowly. "Okay to go back now?" he checked. She nodded again. "Alright."

She followed after him as he led the way back to the logs. She watched as he limped, noticed the awkward way his leg moved and how much the muscles in his back contracted whenever it touched the ground, like it always caused him some level of pain to walk.

She bit her lip and didn't say anything else.


When Nick approached her hammock that evening, her heart sunk and she wasn't sure why.

"I know it's late and pretty last minute, but I want to show you something," he told her.

Something about the way he held himself and the way his words carried some level of seriousness they usually didn't made her spine straighten. It startled her a bit, put her on edge, and without question she followed him because the look on his face only dared her to protest.

She had a weird feeling in the pit of her stomach as he led her across the field. He walked with a purpose and the way the Gladers looked at the two of them as they passed by, as if they knew what was coming, only made her feel worse. Whatever he wanted to show her, it wasn't going to be good.

They reached the far wall beyond the edge of the woods and she felt confused. They were facing ivy-clad concrete and Nick paused, watching the moss in an eerie moment of silence. It was in that moment that she realized this was the closest she'd ever been to one of the maze walls. She followed the wall all the way to the top with her eyes, craning her neck in order to see where it ended. She thought about Newt's story and how he'd tried climbing to the top. She never realized before just how high the walls were and an image of a boy plummeting to his death flashed across her mind and she cringed.

The air grew thick between them and she slowly trailed her eyes back down to the older boy, waiting with bated breath. He pursed his lips before taking a step forward and brushing some of the ivy aside, exposing a small square in the wall not much larger than her head.

She furrowed her eyebrows and with his nod of approval, she inched closer.

It's a window, she thought, puzzled. She turned to Nick questioningly but he only gestured her forward and with a hint of caution she stepped forward until her nose was only a few centimeters from the glass. It revealed a long corridor clad in dark greenery, extending as far as her eyes could see. Her eyes widened in shock.

"Is this the inside of the maze?"

"Yeah," Nick told her. "Shouldn't be long now, the doors just closed. Keep watching," he instructed.

She did as he asked, not quite sure what she was looking or waiting for but her instincts kept her wary and on her toes.

About a minute passed and then she saw it. A flash of silver at the end of the passageway. She narrowed her eyes, her sight not nearly strong enough to identify what it was. She moved even closer to the glass, curiosity eating away at her as she watched the silvery glint in the moonlight. For a few seconds it didn't move, just remained floating in the darkness until suddenly it expanded and her breath caught in her throat.

There was something large scuttling in the distance and then there were multiple silvery flashes of light. They looked almost metallic and formed odd angles but they clearly took solid form. She didn't have much time to think about what they could possibly be because she heard a familiar shriek, much louder than the one she heard last night and very obviously close by. Her heart contracted painfully against her chest and she jumped, glancing up at the sky as if expecting to see some horrid creature bounding down at her when she could feel a slight rumbling in the ground beneath her feet.

There were dull clangs reverberating on concrete and she quickly turned her head back to the window at just the right time. Something large and grotesque collided with the window with a spine-rattling boom and she screamed, flying backwards and into a body behind her.

Hands steadied her at her biceps holding her in place and she watched with horror as a monster only her nightmares could conjure up roared before her on the other side of the glass. Its large mouth watered with saliva, sharp teeth glinting in what little light could be reflected and she found she was too terrified to move.

The hands squeezed her arms reassuringly as she trembled and Nick must've figured she had enough for he drew the ivy back across the window, hiding her from the monster's view. It didn't stop the screams though. She felt like she was going to be sick.

"What is that thing?" she asked, barely above a whisper, forcing the bile down her throat and wrapping her arms around her stomach.

"A Griever," said Nick. "They only come out at night and they live inside the maze."

Everything about this felt wrong. She didn't know what to make of it. Her mind didn't have the capacity to wrap itself around it. For a moment she retreated back to her earlier train of thought – it's not real.

"How are they real?" she was mostly asking herself but Nick still answered.

"Hell if I know," he said, lip curling slightly. "We don't know much about them. Only that they have stingers."

She highly doubted they'd been able to examine one up close and knew there must've been a reason as to how they knew that.

"What happens if you get stung?"

Nick rubbed the back of his neck before crossing his arms across his chest.

"We call it the Changing. It's an infection that spreads from the inside out, turning you into this blood-thirsty thing. Only the serum can cure you but after that you're not the same."

She shuddered. "Serum?"

"It comes up with our supplies," he explained. "The Creators obviously know how these bastards work."

She felt faint. Whoever put them there must have also put the Grievers there as well. Maybe to study their interactions, how they co-existed. Either way, it was experimental and it made her absolutely nauseous to think of how cruel someone had to be to stick monsters with children just to see what happened.

"So that's what I heard last night," she muttered. They only come out a night. She looked up. "And none of them have ever gotten inside the Glade?"

"Never," Nick shook his head. "The only time they're really out is when the doors are closed and they can't climb the walls, they're too high."

None of that reassured her. The walls didn't make her feel protected, not in the slightest.

"How do you know about the stingers or the Changing then?"

"Sometimes the Runners don't get so lucky," was all he said.

All of it was a bad dream. A very vivid, very bad dream. She couldn't fathom a world where monsters existed and roamed free, preying on children and shrieking into the night. It sounded like something out of a terrifying storybook or an urban legend meant to scare kids into staying home when the sun went down. She remembered things like that from her past. It was nothing personal in relation to her, but she knew of fairytales and mythical creatures. She knew them as exactly what they were – fairytales and mythical creatures. Things one would read in fiction or see in a movie.

They weren't supposed to be real.

A voice sounded from behind her and she started, having forgotten the hands that continued to rest on her upper arms.

"Why'd you show her so soon?" asked Newt. "She's only been here two days."

Nick shrugged halfheartedly. "I figured she had the right to know."

She could almost hear Newt narrow his eyes. "That's never stopped you before."

Nick seemed on the verge of losing his patience, which surprised her because out of the few boys she'd met so far, he seemed the most laidback.

"Let's just say I'm trying something new, okay?" he snapped. Newt didn't respond and his hands lingered on her arms a few seconds longer before they fell away, his fingers tickling her skin before the contact was lost. She glanced warily at the window that remained behind the layer of ivy. Nick didn't need to ask in order to know what was troubling her. "Like I said, whatever lives on the other side of those walls… it stays there."

"Why is that window there in the first place?" she felt the need to ask. "Kind of a bold design choice don't you think?"

"I like to think the Creators just have a sick sense of humor," Nick told her. She was thinking along the same lines. An icy chill crept up her spine, nearly making her shiver. "Any questions?"

She eyed Newt who'd stepped forward to stand at her side.

"None you could probably answer," she said honestly.

Nick raised an eyebrow. "Fair enough."

He watched her for a moment and she stiffened.

It was really starting to grate on her nerves how often people stared at her, as if she were a specimen in a lab that needed to be studied. She often considered clearing her throat to break their gaze but she refrained, telling herself that it'd been months since they'd last seen a girl (to their knowledge anyway). She knew that had to have been at least half the logic behind their stares. In the back of her head she reminded herself that it didn't make them any less rude but she didn't know how to go about voicing that opinion out loud. Her memories may have been wiped clean but her manners certainly had not.

"Let's go," Nick said, forcing her out of her thoughts. "Get yourself something to eat and try not to worry about the Grievers."

They began their trek back towards the kitchens, the sky having darkened to such a degree that their only guides were the lit torches that circled the perimeter of the Glade's center where all the activity was taking place.

"Weird as it may sound, they're the least of our worries," said Nick a few seconds later, as if feeling the need to try and reassure her in some way. "We've just gotta get by one day at a time."

She absently played with her fingers as she walked between them.

"That's not really the easiest thing to do right now," she admitted softly.

"I don't blame you," said Nick. Newt dutifully remained silent but part of her felt as though he was only there for reassurance. She didn't quite know what for but she didn't dwell on it as it seemed to have been working. "How's Keeper's training coming along?" Nick eventually asked.

He didn't seem like the type of person who could stand long periods of silence, which drastically contrasted her and possibly even Newt. She'd shared a few moments of comfortable silence with him since they met. She figured it was one of the few things they had in common; the ability to let their quietness do the talking rather than their words.

"As well as to be expected, I guess. I didn't like working with the Slicers," she said carefully, hoping that it wouldn't somehow offend Nick. "I've discovered I'm not a fan of blood… or cutting dead animals open."

Nick hummed. "You probably won't enjoy working with the Med-Jacks tomorrow then. There's always someone who's cut themselves bloody," at her grimace he snickered a bit. "Just close your eyes and tell yourself it'll all be over soon."

She bit her lip. "I tried doing that earlier today but Newt kept asking me to get more fertilizer."

There was a pause before the two boys guffawed loudly and Newt stared at her with an open-mouthed grin, exposing the prominent laugh lines on either side of his lips. She felt a bit proud that she'd been able to take him by surprise.

"She makes jokes!" he announced as his eyes shined with mirth. Color flooded his face as he lit up and she decided that this was the most alive she'd seen him since their first meeting. "Cheeky this one," he said gleefully, nudging her playfully with his shoulder.

She quirked a half smile at the quick change in atmosphere as the tension began to fade away.

Nick chuckled and shook his head, eyes glowing with a hint of satisfaction. "You're going to be just fine, Greenie. You're going to be just fine."