Escape

Disclaimer: In its use of intellectual property and characters belonging to James Dashner, Dell Publishing, Wes Ball, TSG Entertainment, Temple Hill Productions, The Gotham Group, et cetera, this work is intended to be transformative commentary on the original. No profit is being made from this work. Any similarities to other fanfiction stories are completely coincidental.

"Gally?" Thomas stared at the wide eyed boy who was holding a throwing knife in one hand and a Griever key in the other that was labeled as six. He did not look torn up or particularly scrambled, making the group wonder how he had reached the facility on his own and hold their breaths as they waited to hear what he had to say. Gally seemed different and looked frightened for once, putting everyone on edge as they tried to understand what was wrong with his behavior.

"What's going on?" Thomas questioned, prompting the boy across from him to tense.

"They...can control me," Gally wheezed, reaching for his throat as if he was choking and looking towards the group in desolation. "I don't – I have...to."

He then ceased his unclear speech, relaxing immediately and grasping his blade tighter as the Gladers tried to understand what he was saying and who exactly had this sort of hold on him. Was it the creators?

They did not have time to find out, because before anyone could utter another word to Gally the boy was bringing his right arm up high and whipping the dagger he held towards Thomas with surprising strength and accuracy. The time in the room seemed to slow as the group watched the object propel through the air, too sluggish with shock to do anything and betrayed that their friend had done such a horrid thing. Thomas' brain desperately tried to move his body as his life flashed before his eyes, but the boy could not find his feet and found that his hands had gone completely cold. It seemed that everything was going to be over and that the situation was completely helpless until a figure leaped in front of Thomas.

With a horrid 'shunk', the blade landed itself right into Chuck's chest, and the young boy fell to the ground with a gruesome shriek of pain.

There was a split second of shock as the group stared down at the boy before Thomas spoke his name, almost as if he did not believe the chestnut haired pre-teen had been the one to save him. Anyone but Chuck - please, he thought, dropping to his knees and letting his face scrunch up in devastation as he came back to reality.

"Chuck!" He howled as he gripped the boy rapidly losing consciousness, blood oozing from his mouth as his body began to fail him. "No - CHUCK!"

"Thomas," The younger boy wheezed as his friend tried anything to save him, blood spurting from the injury only to coat the floor and Thomas' hands. "F-find my mom, t-tell her..."

"Chuck!"

Chuck did not get to finish his sentence, as his eyes had rolled up into their sockets and he had begun to go limp in Thomas' arms. The older boy shouted for help, knowing fully well that the reason no one moved was not only out of trauma but because they had all accepted that he was beyond saving. Chuck had sacrificed himself for the boy he considered his leader, deeming it necessary to the situation as he had seen that Thomas was capable of leading the Gladers to safety.

"Chuck," Thomas' deplorable tone, Chuck's faint gargling noises and the faint alarm were the only noises in the room at the moment. "Don't die...please, fight it."

It was then, as he realized that his friend's body was now lifeless and would no longer pass back into the land of the living, that something inside Thomas broke. It was like a beam that was holding too much weight after endless amounts of objects had been piled on top of it, and he found that a sensation beginning in the middle of his stomach was growing to encase his entire body. His mental stability in the moment crumbled as the dams of calm holding the rage in his mind back cracked and began to spew at the edges. He was vibrating with fury, spots dancing in his vision as he stood up to face Gally and rushed towards him like a madman.

The two collided, Gally apparently too conflicted to fight back as Thomas' form overwhelmed him and beat him to the ground. Punches flew and slammed Gally's head back into the ground, nose crunching and lips splitting as his face was mauled by Thomas' fists. He could not tell whether or not his cries of anguish or Gally's cries of pain were louder, but both of them molded together into one noise as he continued to abuse the boy senselessly.

It was not until Minho and Newt pulled him away that Thomas stopped doing damage to Gally, arms still swinging even though they were colliding with nothing but pure air. His friends dragged him back, managing to refocus his attention on Chuck as they knew that beating Gally was not going to help their situation. The boy was already unconscious from Thomas' attack, lying still several feet away.

"No," Thomas muttered in defeat as he refused to accept the fact that Chuck was gone. "I promised..."

All of his friend's faces stared down at the hurricane of a situation that had obliterated their sense of movement. The sheer amount of information and events that had occurred were growing to be too large, and many of the Gladers did not know how to handle what was happening. This was clear on many of their faces, as they could not muster any emotion besides pain when they looked down at Chuck's still form covered by a sobbing Thomas who lamented the death of his friend. Newt placed a hand over his mouth to cover a sob of his own as his friends broke down around him as well, not being able to come to terms with the fact that they had been unable to protect the younger boy like they had promised. He would never see his parents; never truly understand what had happened to the earth and never realize why he had been so important to the puzzle that Ava Paige had been trying to explain before her seemingly inevitable demise.

Then, as if out of their wildest dreams, the steel plating at the end of the hallway where the door labeled 'Surface access tunnel S-7' slid open with a hiss, and men clad in black carrying assault rifles swept into the facility.

To Thomas, everything was muted as he clung to the younger boy he had promised to protect, and even when strong hands gripped his shoulders and forced him to move he pushed back against them to try and salvage Chuck's body that he had convinced himself was still alive. There had to be a way to save him – he could not have been gone. But he was torn away, still bawling uncontrollably with every step and fighting back with everything he had and not even questioning why there were unknown hands trying to rip him away from the room where Chuck and Gally lay.

Inka, on the other hand, was in a purely disturbed state of mind. She could feel Newt's hands, pushing and guiding her along the hallway towards the bright light and she could see the black figures around her nearly melting into the forms of the Gladers, but she could not bring herself back to reality. Everything seemed like a dream; she could not breathe properly and she could see her vision blurring around the edges as she fought to focus. Her ears did not want to comply and listen to everything at once, instead choosing to listen to the muffled sound of Winston shouting and one of the soldiers – or the men she assumed to be some sort of military – bark orders to keep moving as they pulled the group along.

Then, the group burst out into the light and were exposed to the world again for the first time after their swipe. Inka and the rest of the Gladers stared around at the world buried in sand as best they could whilst making a run for the very obvious getaway helicopter, noticing that the sand was almost like a tomb that chambered the lands that had once been vast cities with high skyscrapers. Time slowed for Inka as her footsteps and breath rate faltered whilst she stared around her in a terrorized awe. Very little green was popping out of the sand, and it seemed that the entire barren wasteland was void of objects besides rocks and scattered highways until she spotted ruined buildings in the distance as well. Something had indeed happened to the earth...and perhaps Ava Paige was not the only one with answers as to why the hell things had turned out this way. This equation was growing larger and larger by the minute.

"Run! Your life depends on it!" Out of nowhere one the soldiers shoved Inka, causing her to break out of her reverie and sluggishly continue her sprint to the helicopter a distance away still in a daze. She did not know what the man meant, but could spot Newt in the distance scanning for her amongst the group of Gladers and stopped as soon as he saw that she had fell behind.

"Inka!" He shouted, surprised at his own burst of adrenaline as he pulled her along upon reaching his spot. He noted her paleness and continued to wordlessly tug her along, knowing that she was going to reach a state of immobility and stupor soon if they did not get to the chopper fast. Based on what he had learned about her so far, she had a certain ability to lose touch with reality if she was exposed to certain traumas. The other Gladers – besides Thomas, who was the last one out of the WCKD bunker buried in sand and was just coming back to reality as he caught sight of the ruined earth before him – seemed damaged, but did not exhibit such concerning traits.

The group clambered into the big military helicopter at last, filling the large space that lay behind the pilots seats and looking around at each other in suspense. They had no idea who these masked men were or what purpose they served, and here they were being loaded into a helicopter and airlifted into the sky with nothing more than threats and shouts of encouragement. Newt quickly pulled Inka to his side, clinging to her harshly and feeling her grip back despite her detachment from the world at the moment, realizing that they both desperately needed each other for support.

"You guys alright?" One of the men wearing a mask took his face protector off as the helicopter grew in altitude, taking a large turn to swoop around the large stone wall that the Gladers had rushed out of. "It's okay – you're safe now."

The Gladers seemed shell shocked to see a real adult, grown and fully capable of speech sitting in front of them and not being shot at or shooting. It was, in fact, all they had known so far – and for that the man could not blame them.

The chopper began moving quite rapidly, causing the group to anxiously look out the windows to get a glimpse of what the world had come to and what state humanity was in. Nothing greeted them at first, as all they could spot was sand and large stone walls, but then as the helicopter made one final turn, the Gladers spotted the first and last view of the maze and their Glade, all spread out underneath them and covered by a large clear dome that had been trapping them in. Testing them. They saw the walls they had needed to so desperately memorize to get out and they saw the paradise that was the green place sitting right in the middle. That had been their home – their oasis free of pain and up until recently, their safe zone.

Newt went numb. His head fell, a sense of heaviness washing over him as he recognized the severity of the fact that he had been locked inside a test chamber for three years. He had seen boys die – he had had a part of himself die in the Glade – and he had witnessed more suffering than many could bear in that green haven that he had called home. He had also previously owned a life, he realized, closing his eyes in pain and feeling his stomach clench for a past he could not remember. He would never go back to it, not unless there was a whole other community of people out there that was hidden from this monstrosity that had taken over the planet.

He vaguely recognized Inka's equally petrified stare as she connected the dots in her mind and realized that 'trial eighty four' on her monitor meant that she had run through the horrible white walled maze stuck somewhere deep in the facility eighty four times. She accepted it now – she could see the reality of her misery for all that time. She did not know how long she had been enclosed behind those white walls, being chased by those terrible creatures that had mauled her face and scratched at her soul. She did not know why she had been chosen in particular and ripped away from the rest of humanity along with the other Gladers, but she knew that for whatever reason it was she would not forgive her captors. There was a price to pay for such mistreatment, even if it was in the name of science.

All the breath in her lungs left in one large woosh as she began to feel a numbing in her fingers, and she found herself hyperventilating as her heart beat erratically in her chest. Her vision began to tunnel, black coating the sides again as her brain began to overload with stress. She could barely draw a breath, trying top stop the tightness in her chest and the nausea that crept up in her stomach as she felt herself grow more and more lightheaded by the second. Newt snapped himself out of his daze to assist her, finding that his efforts were making a difference when he clasped his hands on either side of her face and made her look at him. Still, her eyes would not focus and her paleness frightened him, causing him to try and shake her out of her panic attack with words of comfort instead.

"Inka - listen to me."

Inka slowly began to focus on him, grey eyes fusing to brown as she felt the incredibly strong pull inside of abdomen that she had tried to describe to him in the first several days of her existence in the Glade.

"Listen to my voice – look at me. We're alive, we're safe."

She gritted her teeth together, trying to draw a breath and struggling visibly in the process. So Newt breathed with her instead, calming himself down in the process and watching her try to mimic his actions. He encouraged her with a calm nod as her lips parted further to take in more breath, following his lead as he breathed deep and slow to guide her to a regular heart rate, finding himself incredibly pacified as well. What was really minutes felt like hours as the two assisted each other, sharing oxygen instead of words until Inka's breathing rate finally began to slow down. Although neither of them noticed it, the helicopter was still moving through the sandy cities and grew hot as the sun beat down on it's metallic shell. It was not until Newt released his hold on the sides of Inka's head that he realized his fingers had become entangled in her short locks, and the same soft blush that he had seen in the Glade the day she had stabbed Alby with the neutralizing syringe lit her cheeks. Again he pondered if it was a reaction to the hot and cold sweats that happened after an anxiety attack, but her wide grey eyes that regarded him with a look of firm trust were a sign to him that it was not just her body temperature that was making the red appear.

Newt did not take his eyes off of Inka for another long moment, letting his brows pull together slightly when he felt an impeccable twinge of familiarity. He could not place it, as with all of the feelings he had that he remembered and could not place in the puzzle that was his hijacked brain, but he was certain that the feeling had been felt before – and very strongly. What scared Newt the most however, was not the fact that this strong connection had been made before but the fact that he did not know who the connection had been made with. Had he felt this protective and drawn towards a friend? Had he entrusted a family member this much? Was this what it felt like to care so deeply for someone that Newt would rather put himself in danger instead of seeing the tiny British she-bean in front of him get hurt?

He did not know, but things were different now. Whoever he had felt the connection and those emotions with before did not seem to matter when Inka was sitting right in front of him. She was a fascinating specimen with the extraordinary capability to believe and fight amongst even the toughest of obstacles, inspiring and leading all the way through. Upon her arrival in the Glade there had been major changes, not only in behavior but in attitude that many considered for the better. She had sparked that – she had been part of the massive push that had triggered the landslide motivation and the faith that had finally brought answers. She had been a massive part of the push that had placed them in this very helicopter that was delivering them to what they hoped to be safety.

"Everything is going to change." The man drew attention back to himself while looked around at all of the confused teenagers, trying his not to upset them any further as they continued to spare long glances at the outside world beyond the helicopter's walls. "Relax – ETA is an hour."

Although none of the Gladers visibly relaxed at his words, they did not question them and shared uneasy glances before shifting themselves into more comfortable places. Inka and Newt now sat unbelievably close, every inch of their sides pressing together from their shoulders all the way down to their hips, legs and feet. If they had been camouflaged in black one could have guessed that they had been molded into one by the sheer lack of space in between them. Both were rigid and tense, counting on each other's presence for a link to reality as they tried to cope with the startling realization of what had happened so far and what was to come next.

On the other end of the helicopter, Thomas had succumbed to his weariness and had allowed his shock to ebb away as the fatigue took over, forcing him to lay back on rough equipment as his eyes slid shut. He was out in a matter of seconds, the last sensation being Teresa's soft hands in his hair as she made an effort to comfort him and ease his heightened emotions. Soon enough, Thomas was drifting into the dreamworld and into another memory, one that he knew held more answers despite it's traumatic nature.

As soon as he visualized his surroundings, the first thing Thomas noted was the distance between his feet and the ground in the crowded train station. The second thing he noticed was the teary eyes of a woman standing before him amidst the sea of people, shouting and begging to be let into an area that his back was facing. Thomas could not hear or understand what the woman was saying, but he managed to make out the words 'remember' and 'love' before a firm pair of camouflaged arms grasped his torso and pulled him away from her. She was pushed back into the rest of the crowd and whilst he could not recognize her, he felt the strongest pull towards her. He tried to struggle back, but realized that his small body – in the form of a young boy – was too weak and feeble against the one of the hardened soldier.

He was carried to a train loaded with scary amounts of men bearing guns and plopped down on the far end of a compartment. Thomas looked around, once at the gun in front of him and then at the soldier wielding it, then again around the compartment of the train. His eyes fell on all types of children just like him looking equally as confused and frightened, exchanging identical glances at Thomas as though he had the answers. Then, he spotted a face that he could remember like no other.

It was Ava Paige.

"Thomas...it's going to be okay," The doctor spoke softly to him, blonde locks cascading down her shoulders as she moved back to sit beside a girl who looked remarkably familiar, only to place her arm around her.

The girl's short hair was tousled and her youthful face was smudged with tears as she trembled, refusing to make eye contact with anyone until another familiar face entered the train. The boy was skinny and frail, golden hair whipping back and forth as he struggled against the soldier grasping him. Another man assisted in holding him down, but the boy did not stop his efforts until he caught sight of the girl across from him.

The two visibly changed their demeanor after seeing each other, trying to reach each other in the struggle and screeching that they were friends when the soldiers sitting around them held them back. The two still struggled, crying out for contact as it was their only chance for comfort after having been planted in such a horrifying situation but were continuously denied it.

It took a moment for Thomas' sluggish brain to realize that this was Newt and Inka, but before he could say anything his memory was being tugged away and it was as if he had been placed in a machine washer on high. His vision swirled, spinning and spinning the world around him until he resurfaced in a familiar metal contraption.

The box...could it be? No. He was far away from that godforsaken place back in the maze in the middle of it all. He could not have been cycled back to the start after everything he had been through. It could not be possible.

"No...no, no..." He muttered, rising to his feet as he spotted the distinct droplets of water cascading down his form and sliding through the cracks of the metal cage. It was moving upwards, just as it had when he had first entered the Glade that had seemed so utopic at the time. "NO!"

The box rose higher and higher, propelling him towards the surface where the light shone ominously although this time it did not stop.

Thomas gave one final scream, covering his head with his arms and expecting the worst before he was thrust into the light completely.

"THOMAS!"

It was Minho, shouting in his face and shaking him awake whilst panic coated his features.

"Wake up! We gotta go!"

His friend pulled him out of the now empty helicopter, only to thrust him into the arms of soldiers who were equally as unapologetic in their task of ripping him away from the war machine and pulling him across the sand. Thomas struggled for a moment, gathering his bearings and making sure that Chuck's idol – the small statue the boy had carved for Thomas back in the Glade as lament to his unknown parents – was still tucked safely away in his pocket. Upon acknowledgment that it was still there, Thomas was able to fully awake from his slumber and try to grasp what was happening.

It was dark all around him with nothing but voices shouting for him to run, and although lights illuminated the path ahead of him where he could see his friends running towards a giant lit-up building Thomas' mind still struggled to focus on what was going on. The situation only got worse when gunfire erupted from behind him, and Thomas could barely make out the sound of what sounded like an animal snarling from not too far away. The soldier shouted something again before firing, and then pushed Thomas along further before he started to run on his own.

Nothing but gunfire and the sounds of shouting accompanied him for the next several seconds as he caught up with his friends swamped by soldiers. The giant doors of the base ahead of them, about one hundred meters away, opened only to usher out more soldiers that sprinted their way with heavy assault rifles at the ready. None of the Gladers stopped to question what was happening or what they were shooting at, and used whatever energy they had left in their beings to focus on reaching the large illuminated facility.

Newt, on the other hand, had his eyes focused on two things; Inka and the giant structure they were running towards. His main priorities included getting himself and his friends to safety at the moment, and he was capable of shutting out all other noises as well as the disfigured forms that were hurling themselves at the soldiers in the dark whilst he gripped Inka's arm tightly and made the final shove towards the giant hanger doors.

The two burst across the striped hazard line with the rest of the group seconds before the large metal doors slammed shut, looking behind them to check that everyone else had made it before looking around them in awe. The facility, looking to be some kind of plant of some sort, was in full swing with soldiers darting all around them driving tail motors or jogging past them with large assault rifles. Welders were positioned near the wall they had just entered from, repairing what seemed to be dents and fractures in the steel or reinforcing the metal for a reason that the Gladers could not grasp yet.

The group's dirty faces were only able to gaze around at the bustling men around them for a moment longer before what seemed to be a sergeant approached them and barked for them to follow his large form. Once again, Inka was pulled along by Newt in his efforts to get her shocked form to move along faster as he had noticed that her brain was on the brink of another panic attack. Many things could happen in one day, but it did not mean that her brain was capable of handling all of them.

The sergeant and two other soldiers flanking the group quickly guided them towards a small door hidden behind a large shipping crate and did not cease shouting orders for them to hurry along until the entire group was safely tucked away inside. It was then that he began to shut the door.

"Wait," Thomas found himself blurting before he could stop the words from bubbling up in his throat, catching the sergeant's attention. "What's going on out there?!"

"Nothing we can't handle," He assured gruffly before slamming the door shut in their faces and encasing the group in total darkness.

"Hey!" Thomas banged on the door in disbelief, anger fueling him as he realized that once again he had been locked away by a higher power. "Hey! Let us out of there!"

He was interrupted by a buzz as the light in the room sprung to life, and the entire group turned distractedly only to find themselves faced with a long table filled to the brim with delicious morsels of all kinds of food imaginable.

A beat of silence ensued before they all lunged.

"Dibs on the rice!" Frypan reached for the large bowl of white seeds as the rest of the survivors shoved whatever food they could get to down their throats.

Chicken, bread, vegetables and fruits all made themselves down the group's gullets only to be followed by water as they engaged in the feast of their lives. There were no noises in the room besides chomping and swallowing, save for desperate breaths in between bites as each former Glader tried to shovel as much food as they could muster into their stomachs knowing that their next meal would not be guaranteed. It was a happy sight to see each other indulge after so many stressful hours without a bite of nutrition.

"This sure is better than Frypan's slop!" Winston laughed as he made the jab towards the ex-cook, already taking a liking to their new found safe zone.

"You're right!" Frypan only cackled back, taking a large bite of an apple as Teresa playfully tossed rice back towards the former Keeper of the slicers for his comment. A food fight ensued, distracting most of the group who had otherwise satisfied their stomach's and were now nibbling continuously at what was left of the food pile.

Newt smiled and laughed – the first real signs of positivity since he had been in the Glade mere days ago – when Inka took the chance to shove a handful of rice down his shirt. He retaliated by dumping a handful of the same small white pellets on her head, reveling in her shriek of content as the rest of their friends continued to pelt each other with food. It was pure, uninhibited joy that the small group felt in those short moments as they threw whatever useless leftovers they could find towards each other.

The moment ended when the group decided that they needed to rest to digest the food they had gulped down, and quickly situated themselves on the various tables and sandbags that lay scattered around what seemed to be a utility room. Thomas had already checked for exits after his meal, finding that the doors were locked and that the group would have to wait until someone unlocked the front door they had come in from to get out. So, the survivors relaxed for the time being, minds drifting once more as they thought about who exactly had saved them from the horrors of the WCKD facility.

"I don't know who these guys are," Frypan sighed, taking one last bite of the rice before setting his bowl aside and leaning against a large pillar. "But they can cook."

"Fry," Inka looked over at the former cook slowly, ignoring his statement and realizing that she had never known the boy's full name. "What's your real name?"

"Siggy," He responded, patting his full stomach and looking back at the girl who Newt held protectively against his side in mild curiosity. "Or Sigmund – but it sounds dumb."

"Sigmund..." She narrowed her eyes slightly, trying to riddle out why it sounded to familiar. The name sounded like it came with something else on the end, but she couldn't figure out what even though she knew it was on the tip of her tongue. Damn her padlocked brain. "We should have last names..."

"What do you mean?" Newt craned his neck to look down at her, watching her lips purse in thought.

"There should be something that comes after our names," She continued. "It feels sort of empty – you know? Like there's half of it missing...in fact, how do we even know that our names are our names? WCKD could have easily changed what we thought our real names were if they swiped the rest of our brains."

Newt bristled, unsure if the subject was a secure one as most of the Gladers had been so dependent on assuring each other that their names were the only real memories that the creators had let them keep. To suddenly discover that they were missing pieces of it – or that their names were not what they thought they had been – would have been devastating and too stressful for many of the group to bear. Their names were the only sure thing that they had left; the only information that they had been sure of since the beginning. To be stripped of that after everything that had happened so far would have been too groundbreaking and mind shattering, so none of the group chose to comment for the time being. Even if Newt found himself questioning his own name and agreeing with Inka's theory, he remained silent as well and merely held her tighter.

"I can't believe there's so many of them still back there," Winston hung his head low, thinking back to the rest of the boys still in the Glade as well as Gally and Chuck who most likely still lay slaughtered inside the WCKD facility. The mood dampened even further after his change of topic, bringing everyone back down into the proper state of mind after having been put through such rattling events.

"Don't..." Teresa tried to stop the flow of conversation on that matter, but Thomas was already affected and had pulled out Chuck's talisman from deep inside his pocket. No words were shared as the entire group regarded the figurine in sorrow, memories flashing back to the fateful moments mere hours ago. So much had changed and so much had gone wrong in such a short time span that it left several of the brains in the room scrambling for hope that their situation would get better.

"We owe it to them," Thomas started after a few moments, a burst of determination flashing through him at the memory of his fallen friend. He let a few tears escape his eyes as the grief overwhelmed him and rattled his beaten bones. "To keep going. To figure out who did this. To figure out what the hell is going on and to solve all this mess."

"We're not going anywhere from here," Newt butted in, appreciating his friends drive but accepting that for the time being they were immobile. "I mean...do you really think these guys know anything about who we are?"

"We don't even know who they are," Teresa proped her head up on her hand, leaning against a sandbag and making eye contact with Newt and his small British counterpart tucked into his side. "We don't know one single thing about them."

"Well, we know they're no friends of WCKD," Newt rumbled, heaving a sigh as he mentioned the god forsaken name that now held so much meaning to it. "Not if they shot up their control centre."

"That's good enough for me," Minho flipped to his side from his position on the table, squinting at the group and waving his hand. "You guys think too much; we're free, no?"

Newt felt Inka tense up beside him, and locked eyes with a very uneasy Thomas who did not look at all convinced that this was 'free' by any means. They had no idea what was going to come next, nor what part they were supposed to play in the apparent fire that world had come to or what they were supposed to do about their own survival. Minho's question, however, would not be answered for the time being because the door where they had come in from was being unlocked and the survivors were already on their feet to check who was on the other side besides the gun-wielding soldiers.

It was a fairly grey haired man, looking about forty with a large distinct mole on his face and sporting a long leather jacket that seemed otherwise impractical for such times.

"You kids doing all right?" He looked between the raggedy teens, searching for his specific target and smiling slightly when his eyes locked on her tiny form hidden behind her British counterpart.

5 and A-5; our first surviving match pair, He thought, nearly slipping a smirk at the sight of them both but managing to cover it up with what he hoped to be a sincere half smile towards the group as his eyes flitted back to Paige's favorite subject. What a plentiful, successful turnout.

The memorized categories and information flitted through his mind as the man gazed at each one of the straggly survivors, not wishing another moment of discomfort for them considering what lay ahead.

"Sorry about all the fuss," He continued, not wanting to cause alarm as the members tensed visibly under his gaze. "We had ourselves a bit of a swarm."

"Who are you?" Thomas questioned, heading the group and fixing the man with a steely gaze. It was clear each one of the youth was suspicious of him and his intentions.

"I'm the reason you're all still alive," The rat-like man lied through his teeth, grinning slightly and switching his caring tactic for a more authoritative one. "And it's my intention to keep you that way...come with me. We'll get you kids squared away."

A/N: I know that in the book it was one of the rescuers that explains the sun flare to the group, and that at least 20 of the Gladers originally escaped together as well as the fact that the creators actually explained what was happening in person instead of on camera, but once again I find myself following the movie's path because following the book would require a lot more twists and turns and I'm preparing to move onto the Scorch Trials. Of course, parts of the book were still molded with the movie.