Disclaimer: I own nothing from the Maze Runner Trilogy. All rights to James Daschner and the writers of the Maze Runner movie. The idea of the story is to replace a male protagonist with a female protagonist and see where that takes the plotline of the story, so much of the content written by Daschner, meaning actual paragraphs and sentences, are the same. I give all credit to Daschner for the words he's written. I've made the obvious alterations (changing 'he' and 'him' to 'she' and 'her', etc.) but it's truly an A/U story, so I've put my own spin on much of it.

Chapter Seven

In a few hours, she saw what Alby had meant by "something special."

As night began to settle across the Glade, the sound of drums began to waft across the grassy plains. She looked up from where she sat, leaning against the tree beside Chuck.

"What is that?" She asked. Chuck wasn't looking at her; his face was turned to the left, towards the edge of the wood, and he looked excited.

"You're in for a treat, Greenie," he told her. "C'mon."

Chuck got to his feet and grabbed her arm, began tugging her to her feet.

"Where are we—Chuck, I can stand up by myself—where are we going? What's that noise?"

"Just come with me, you'll see." He started walking towards the noise, and when she looked, she saw what she'd missed before in the darkness—the pile of wood she'd seen earlier. It was easy to spot now that what seemed like the entire population of the Glade had congregated there.

She neared it on Chuck's heels, saw a flame flicker and then bloom at the head of a stick held in Alby's hand, like a torch. Several other Gladers, including Newt, Gally, and the muscly Asian kid she'd seen earlier, held out their own torches to Alby's, and the flames spread to light the tips of theirs too.

She stumbled to the edge of the circle of boys, losing Chuck in the crowd. She was too short to see around the boys in front of her, so she elbowed her way through to the front.

"Light 'em up!" Alby yelled, and he and the other boys with lit torches launched them like spears into the teepee of wood, which erupted into flame.

She looked around at the cacophony of noise that ensued; boys cheered and crowed, clapped and stamped their feet. The sound of drums she'd heard before came from what looked like homemade bongos that rested at the feet of several boys beating at them with their hands and sticks.

A flurry of limbs sent her stumbling backwards into somebody, and she was reminded of some distant image of a gymnast as a boy began flipping and somersaulting like an acrobat. Shouts of laughter rang in the air as he landed on his feet, and a taller boy threw an arm around the shoulders of the flipping boy, patting his chest while raising the other arm in the air and pumping his fist.

The boy she fell into guffawed, giving her a push forward. "You alright there, Greenie?" He hollered in her ear.

It was wild. She looked around, soaking it all in. Gally was sitting on a log bench, actually laughing. It greatly improved his appearance. Somebody was passing out glass jars full of sloshing liquid that glowed amber in the firelight. She felt a glass pressed into her hands as the crowd swept in, breaking ranks.

Glasses were raised, clinking together, but she ducked out from the crowd, overwhelmed. She found her way to the edge of the mass, dropping her jar on the way. When the noise wasn't pressing against her skull anymore, she flopped on the ground, back against a log.

She studied the outline of the trees, dark against darker, and tuned out all the noise. Her back to the boys behind her, she didn't see him coming until he took a seat beside her, twigs and grass crunching beneath his feet.

Newt.

She didn't say anything, didn't even turn her head—but she could see the hard line of his jaw. Newt didn't say anything either, which she appreciated. He just sat quietly next to her, watching the woods in silence, chewing on something toasted stuck to the end of a stick.

"Hell of a first day, Greenie," he said finally, looking over at her.

She looked down at her hands, entwined in her lap, but didn't say anything.

"Here," Newt picked up his glass jar, passing it to her. "Put some hair on your chest."

She scrunched up her face, jerking her head back. Newt chuckled. "Just an expression."

She paused before taking the jar. Newt settled back against the log as she raised it hesitantly to her lips. She took a sip, and immediately choked. It tasted disgusting—somehow earthy and acidic at the same time. She gagged, spewing the liquid in her mouth onto the grass at her feet.

Newt glanced over at her, laughing as she coughed.

"Oh my…God. What is that?" She retched, passing the jar back to Newt, who took it.

"I don't even know," he laughed, shrugging as he craned his neck around towards the fire. "It's Gally's recipe. It's a trade secret."

She followed Newt's gaze to Gally, who stood in the midst of a huddle of boys, locked in a wrestle with someone. "Yeah well, he's still an asshole," she muttered, looking back at her hands.

She felt Newt watching her for a moment. "He saved your life today."

She looked up at him. There was a slight smile on his face. "Trust me," he took a sip of the drink, not even flinching. "The Maze is a dangerous place."

There was that word again. Maze. But instead of raising another question about it that was sure to remain unanswered, she said, "We're trapped here, aren't we?"

Newt didn't look at her, but a shadow that had nothing to do with the flickering flames seemed to pass over his face. "For the moment," he said, nodding slightly.

She felt her heart sink, and maybe Newt sensed it, because he looked over at her, meeting her eyes.

"But," he said, raising a finger on the hand clasped around his drink. He turned his upper body towards her, twisting all the way around until he was looking back over the log. "See those guys?" He asked, pointing with the same finger as she turned. "There, by the fire?"

She found the group of guys Newt was pointing at, six of seven of the older boys, more subdued than the rest, grouped around a cluster of crates and boxes slightly apart from the others. She nodded slightly.

"That guy in the middle there, that's Minho." She locked her sight on the Asian kid with the bulging biceps that she'd seen lighting the fire earlier. He was sitting on a crate, leaning forward with his arms folded over his knees, a drink in his hand.

"He's the Keeper of the Runners," Newt told her. "Now every morning, when those doors open, they run the Maze. Mapping it, memorizing it, trying to find a way out."

She looked at Newt carefully. "How long have they been looking?" She asked him.

She sensed his hesitation before he replied. "Two years. A little more."

"And they haven't found anything?" She asked desperately.

Newt smiled at her somewhat sadly, turning to sit back against the log again. His shoulder was now pressed against hers. "It's a lot easier said than done," he told her. He raised a finger to his ear, turning his upper body to look at her fully. "Listen."

She fell silent, and over the crackling of the bonfire and the somewhat diminished noises of the Gladers, she heard it. The grinding, crunching noise of rocks—huge rocks—shifting against each other.

"Yeah?" Newt nodded at her, raising his eyebrows. "That's the Maze…changing." He lowered his hand, turning forward again. "Changes every night."

Now that Newt had pointed it out to her, the noise felt impossible to ignore. It echoed in her head, bouncing off her brain with the magnitude of its implications. "How's that even possible?" She whispered, more to herself than Newt.

Newt grinned a little, shaking his head as he shrugged. "You can ask the people who put us in here, if you ever meet the bastards." Newt looked away from her, watching his drink.

"Listen the truth is, the Runners are the only ones that really know what's out there. They're the strongest and the fastest of us all, and it's a good thing too because if they don't make it back before those doors close"—He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder—"Then they're stuck out there for the night…" He looked at her unflinchingly. "And no one's ever survived a night in the Maze."

She could tell he wasn't being dramatic, wasn't trying to scare her. There was only honesty in those big brown eyes. She watched as he turned away from her, took another drink from his glass. She realized what she was doing and quickly looked away.

"What happens to them?" She asked.

Again, Newt hesitated. She had a feeling she was asking too many questions, but Newt still answering her, and she was too curious to relent. Newt sipped his drink again before answering. "Well we call 'em Grievers. Of course no one's ever…seen one, and lived to tell about it. But they're out there."

He was quiet for a moment, and she sensed the weight of the topic, wondered about the history of terror these Grievers must have had on the Glade, to make Newt sound so tense.

"Right well," Newt set his glass down, turning to her. "That's enough questions for one night. C'mon." He sat forward as if to get up, placing a hand on her shoulder when she didn't move. "Listen, you're supposed to be the guest of honor."

She looked up at him, startled. "Well I—no, nah—no, I—"

"No! No, no, come on." He picked up his glass, standing up. "Let me show you around."

"I—" She began, still protesting.

"Come on," Newt said, gripping her around the arm and pulling her to her feet.

Newt began to lead her around the ring of people surrounding the fire, pointing out different groups of people.

"Over there we've got the Builders," he told her, gesturing towards Gally and the wrestling circle, which was oohing as Gally roughly tossed someone to the dirt. Newt turned to look at her, walking backwards. "They're very good with their hands, but not a lot going on up here." He tapped his temple with a finger.

She turned away from Gally, who was grinning as he helped up the boy he'd just thrown to the ground, as Newt continued. "And then there's Winston," Newt nodded at a tan boy with thick, dark eyebrows. Winston was leaning against a barrel, talking through a laugh as he pointed at another Glader. She thought he looked vaguely Middle Eastern.

"He's the Keeper of the Slicers," Newt told her. "And we've got some of the Medjacks, Clint and Jeff." Two boys walked past, and she recognized them as the ones that had been leaning over her when she came around in the Sick House after passing out. Newt slapped one of them on the back as they said hello, giving her a curious look as they ambled by.

"They spend most of their time bandaging up the Slicers," Newt added, grinning.

They had made their way fully around the circle, and were now at the edge of the wrestling pit again. Newt stopped, and she turned to face him.

"And what if I wanna be a Runner?" She asked him.

Newt laughed once, then caught sight of her face and stopped. "Have you listened to a word I just said? No one wants to be a Runner. And besides, you get chosen—"

"Chosen by who?" She interrupted eagerly.

Newt opened her mouth to respond, but his eyes widened at something behind her. She didn't have a chance to look around before someone careened into her, and she tripped forwards.

"Woah!" She heard several voices call out as she barely managed to regain her footing. She turned around, straightening out her shirt as she registered what had happened. A boy—the one who'd ran into her—was being helped up by someone. Gally stood a few feet back, dusting dirt off his pants. She locked eyes with him.

"What d'you say, Greenie?" He asked, cocking an eyebrow. "Wanna see what you're made of?"

She didn't have a chance to respond before a boy to her left—Jeff, the Medjack—started chanting. "Greenie, Greenie, Greenie…"

Soon the majority of the Gladers had taken up the chant. She looked around, saw Gally smirking cockily amidst the sea of excited faces. Minho, the Keeper of the Runners, looked up curiously from the crates. The chant increased in both volume and tempo as more boys gathered around.

Jeff walked behind her, slapping her shoulder as he passed. Gally beckoned her forward with a hand. The chant climaxed as the Gladers began to holler and clap, cheering her on. She never agreed, but the boys had reformed a circle around her and Gally, who was pushing up his sleeves.

"Alright," he said. "The rules are simple, Greenie." He began walking around the edge of the ring, and she found herself imitating him. "I try to push you out of the circle…you try to last more than five seconds."

Most of the Gladers laughed at this, but a few called out.

"Go easy on the Greenie, Gally," someone shouted.

"Gally, she's little. Watch yourself." This came from Alby, his voice laced with warning.

She bristled indignantly, and something lit inside her, fueling her on.

"Ready?" Gally asked her.

"Yeah," she nodded, her voice hoarse and quiet.

Before she even raised her hands, Gally had crossed the space between them. His hands crashed into her shoulders, and she reeled back into the wall of boys behind her. Hands caught her, shoved her forwards into the ring again. She'd barely regained her footing when Gally stepped up to her, pushing her forwards so that she fell to the ground on her stomach.

He hadn't even pushed her that hard—he'd mostly just used her own momentum from being propelled forwards—but the shouts of laughter and excitement shifted somewhat, some of them jeering at Gally instead.

"Gally, c'mon man."

"Watch it!"

Instead of being comforted by this, she felt angered and annoyed. She was the only girl, but that didn't mean she couldn't hold her own. She spat the gritty dirt from her mouth, wiped her face as she lifted herself up, twisting around slightly to look at Gally.

He was standing behind her, not moving. "C'mon Greenie," he said, dancing backwards. "We're not done yet."

Shouts of encouragement mixed in with the whoops and jeers now, and, emboldened by this, she scrambled to her feet and said, "Quit calling me 'Greenie.'"

The Gladers around them quieted. "Quit calling you that?" Gally asked her. "What d'you wanna be called? Shank?" Some people laughed. "What do you think, boys? Does she look like a shank?" He asked, as Gladers shouted out yes's and chanted 'Shank, shank, shank!'.

She leapt forward, launching herself into Gally. She locked her arms around his midsection, and they struggled for about ten seconds before Gally got a grip around her shoulders and threw her to the ground. Another chorus of "Oh's," some indignant, others excited as she struggled to her feet, coughing.

"You know what? I think I've settled on Shank," Gally said, grinning wickedly at her as Gladers laughed.

Enraged, she flew forward, slamming into Gally's stomach with her shoulder. She actually heard the breath leave his lungs as he grabbed her shoulders and began to force her back. Her heels dug into the dirt, sending up a spray of pebbles and dust.

Somehow, she knew what to do. As fast as she could, she released Gally and slid out from around him, jumping to the side. Without her body to lean against, Gally fell forward to his knees.

The Gladers cried out in shock, and then began to cheer as she straightened up, panting. "Not bad for a Greenie, huh?" She gasped. Gally took her by surprise, lashed out with his legs. As he kicked out, his foot swept under the back of her feet and she felt her legs fly out from under her.

She fell to the ground, and her head cracked against a rock. "Oh!" She grunted, coughing as she tried to catch her breath. There were worried noises coming from the Gladers, and she saw stars flash in her eyes.

For a moment, she laid there. Then she gasped, and it had nothing to do with the fall.

Marisa.

Her name. It echoed through her skull. Marisa.

"Marisa," she whispered, and the Gladers fell silent. "Marisa," she repeated, louder this time, sitting up. It was her name, she was sure of it. She jumped to her feet. "Marisa!" She said, loudly, looking around at everyone. They watched her with wide eyes. She laughed. "I remember my name! It's Marisa!"

The Gladers were all quiet for a minute. Marisa saw Chuck look around at Newt excitedly. Then—"MARISA!" Alby shouted at the top of his lungs. The rest of the Gladers burst into noise, shouting her name and cheering as they neared her.

Hands patted her on the back, grabbed her shoulders, mussed her hair. "Welcome home, Marisa," said a tall black kid, passing her a jar of Gally's secret drink and grinning from ear to ear. People laughed, boys smiled brightly at her. The cheering increased as she pressed her lips to the rim of the jar, swallowed a sizable amount of the drink. She recoiled at the taste, sticking her tongue out as she shook her head.

Then Gally was there, leaning forward, clasping her free hand in his. "Good job," he said. "…Marisa." Marisa nodded at him, smiling slightly. She opened her mouth to respond when a scream rent the air.

Everyone turned, not to the Sick Room, but to the walls of the Glade. It wasn't Ben, wailing in pain from the Changing. It was something, if possible, even more sinister. It was ringed with something metallic, and also animal. The silence following it was deafening, even the fire seemed to stop crackling.

"What the hell was that?" Marisa whispered. A couple boys looked over at her, but it was Gally who answered.

"That my friend…was a Griever." He took a deep breath, and Marisa could see he was shaken. "Don't worry, you're safe here with us," he told her. "Nothing gets through those walls."

"Alright guys," Alby said loudly. "Let's tuck it in for the night. Come on," he clapped his hands a few times, and the Gladers began to disperse. "It was a good night."

Someone passed Marisa, resting a congratulatory hand on her shoulder as he did. Then another. The boy who had given her the drink, Frypan, she heard someone call him, shook her hand and nodded at her as he turned to walk away. Marisa nodded back, feeling very sober, despite her recent excitement.

An hour later, Marisa was lying in a soft sleeping bag next to Chuck on a bed of grass near the gardens. It was a wide lawn that she hadn't noticed before, and quite a few of the group chose it as their bedtime spot. Marisa thought that was strange, but apparently there wasn't enough room inside the Homestead. At least it was warm. Which made her wonder for the millionth time where they were. Her mind had a hard time grasping names of places, or remembering countries or rulers, how the world was organized. And none of the kids in the Glade had a clue, either — at least, they weren't sharing if they did.

She lay in silence for the longest time, looking at the stars and listening to the soft murmurs of various conversations drifting across the Glade. Sleep felt miles away, and she couldn't shake the despair and hopelessness that coursed through her body and mind — the temporary joy of remembering her name had long since faded away. It'd been one endless — and strange — day.

It was just so...weird. She remembered lots of little things about life — eating, clothes, studying, playing, general images of the makeup of the world. But any detail that would fill in the picture to create a true and complete memory had been erased somehow. It was like looking at an image through a foot of muddy water. More than anything else, perhaps, she felt...sad.

Chuck interrupted her thoughts. "Well, Greenie, you survived First Day."

"Barely." Not now, Chuck, she wanted to say. I'm not in the mood.

Chuck pulled himself up to lean on an elbow, looking at her. "You'll learn a lot in the next couple of days, start getting used to things. Good that?"

"Um, yeah, good that, I guess. Where'd all these weird words and phrases come from, anyway?" It seemed like they'd taken some other language and melded it with her own.

Chuck flopped back down with a heavy flump. "I don't know — I've only been here a month, remember?"

Marisa wondered about Chuck, whether he knew more than he let on. He was a quirky kid, funny, and he seemed innocent, but who was to say? Really he was just as mysterious as everything else in the Glade.

A few minutes passed, and Marisa felt the long day finally catch up to her, the leaded edge of sleep crossing over her mind. But — like a fist had shoved it in her brain and let go — a thought popped into her head. One that she didn't expect, and she wasn't sure from where it came. Suddenly, the Glade, the walls, the Maze — it all seemed ... familiar. Comfortable. A warmth of calmness spread through her chest, and for the first time since she'd found herself there, she didn't feel like the Glade was the worst place in the universe. She stilled, felt her eyes widen, her breathing stop for a long moment. What just happened? she thought. What changed? Ironically, the feeling that things would be okay made her slightly uneasy.

Not quite understanding how, she knew what she needed to do. She didn't get it. The feeling — the epiphany — was a strange one, foreign and familiar at the same time. But it felt ... right.

"I want to be one of those guys that goes out there," she said aloud, not knowing if Chuck was still awake. "Inside the Maze."

"Huh?" was the response from Chuck. Marisa could hear a tinge of annoyance in his voice.

"Runners," Marisa said, wishing she knew where this was coming from. "Whatever they're doing out there, I want in."

"You don't even know what you're talking about," Chuck grumbled, and rolled over. "Go to sleep."

Marisa felt a new surge of confidence, even though she truly didn't know what she was talking about. "I want to be a Runner."

Chuck turned back and got up on his elbow. "You can forget that little thought right now."

Marisa wondered at Chuck's reaction, but pressed on. "Don't try to — "

"Marisa. Newbie. My new friend. Forget it."

"I'll tell Alby tomorrow." A Runner, Marisa thought. I don't even know what that means. Have I gone completely insane?

Chuck lay down with a laugh. "You're a piece of klunk. Go to sleep."

But Marisa couldn't quit. "Something out there — it feels familiar."

"Go...to...sleep."

Then it hit her—she felt like several pieces of a puzzle had been put together. She didn't know what the ultimate picture would be, but her next words almost felt like they were coming from someone else. "Chuck, I...I think I've been here before."

She heard her friend sit up, heard the intake of breath. But Marisa rolled over and refused to say another word, worried she'd mess up this new sense of being encouraged, eradicate the reassuring calm that filled her heart.

Sleep came much more easily than she'd expected.