Authors Note:
I think I'm going to change something about the story. Nothing huge, but after doing some research (again) I found that the estimated number of guys in the Glade (Book) when Thomas arrived was between 50-60. I had about 36 guys there in my mind, but I like the bigger number better. And! I like even numbers and numbers that mean something, so I want the last Glader to come up to be number 60, so that will be five years they were there. A few guys died in the years they've been there, so there will be roughly 50 Gladers, including my OC. She comes up in the 30s – unspecified number because it doesn't really matter… or does it? Hehe.
This story has more humor than I've seen in other TMR fics, so I get it if some people don't like it. Like, yes they are living in a Maze with monsters, but my OC's perception of it speaks a bit about her – something that may come up indirectly in later chapters.
Okay! This chapter has more to do with plot than the last one – I had kinda wanted to focus a bit on her survival tactics and to be a bit funny after the craziness of the Maze night, but this one has more of the boys in it! And it's longer! (5000 words) Enjoy!
Also, I will have a special Chapter out in a bit to celebrate my story getting 10,000 hits! Thank you for all of the kind reviews! Constructive criticism is encouraged!
"-we can definitely talk more about that later." Alby finishes saying to Sam as Nick walks through the door.
The Gladers all turn to look at the interruption, many straightening and looking more lively after being bored to near tears. Going over the job reports from each Keeper was boring, but Alby and Nick found them necessary.
Nick smiles at the guys as he descends the steps to meet Alby at the front. The usual scowl wasn't on the second's face, instead a scrutinizing look replaced it.
Nick looks better. The paleness that the boy came into the Glade with was gone, and the shower seemed to have done some good. The only sign of the what happened in the Maze was the white bandage peeking out from under Nick's dark hair.
"All good?" Nick shot a warm smile to Alby as he turns to face the Gladers.
"Good. I'll go over it with you later. We decided to wait for you to talk about last night."
Nick nods. The Gladers were all on the edge of their seats, eyes bright and anticipation think in the air.
He brought his hands together in a loud clap. "Okay. Let's discuss."
Suddenly there's shouting. Boys firing off questions left and right, some directed at Nick and Minho, others at the greenie who was totally backed into the wall at his side. Gally was already up and trying to make a point, but a few boys stayed at the back to avoid the chaos.
Nick let it go on for a bit, even if his headache intensified. Ah. These guys had no decorum for situations like this.
"Alright! Alright! Slim it!" Alby is full blown scowling again, directing his chilling glare at Gally and the boys at the front. All but Gally cowered at the sight of it. The Keeper of the Builders only huffed and rolled his eyes.
Nick plants his hands on his hips and grins at the Gladers. He hopes the grin hid how huge of a headache he has. "Not what we have all of that out of our systems! Let's please keep it down, my head still hurts."
Many boys deflate at their leader's words. None want to be the ones responsible for Nick's pain, which would make them the subject of Alby's ire.
Nick tried to think of a place to start. There has never been something this huge to happen to them before. Usually, when there was news, it was discussed amongst the Gladers. Nick has never thought that hiding important things from all the boys would go well. They were all stuck here in this Maze without choice, it just didn't feel right to take away any more choices from the guys. So, Nick made sure that everyone knew what was going on, like the Keeper reports. If everyone put their heads together, they had a better chance of surviving. Plus, there was more trust in each other when important decisions were made with all the Gladers involved.
That didn't mean it didn't get difficult at times. There was usually yelling, often fights threatened to break out, and once there were tears. Shuck, the tears. Something on this scale was dangerous, and Nick was cursing his headache that he didn't get to talk more about it with Alby and Newt before the Gathering. His headache and Gally.
The crazy browed blonde was a huge fan of everyone being in the know and having his voice heard. A very loud fan. Nick wouldn't be surprised if Gally came to the Medjack Hut when he did just so he could have a Gathering to talk about all this as soon as possible.
What the shuck were they supposed to say? All the boys lived on the knowledge that no one could survive the Maze. That truth was getting shaken. Three guys survived the Maze and a Griever died! He could already see Gally's freak out in his mind's eye. And the girl! Was she a ghost? Has she been living in the Maze the whole time?
Nick cast a cursory glance at the three boys behind him.
His second in command stood a step behind his right side. The dark skinned boy still has his arms crossed over his chest and his scowl is still on his face, daring any of the Gladers to speak up. He knows that Alby always had a firm opinion on the Ghost Girl situation. The situation – not the girl. He never really knew her, never talked to her, never even learned her name, so he wouldn't form an opinion on her. But her existence, or more specifically, the beliefs surrounding her, threatened the peace they have. They have rules and those rules brought order. Order means peace and peace is safe. She could throw all of that off balance. By the Glade, her box threw them for a loop, and it was just a box! If she was alive? Alby had only told him once, but Nick understood. It was better if she were dead and the odd occurrences were just a trick from the Creators because she could break their peace.
Newt thinks differently about it. Of course, he does. The blonde sits in a chair close to the greenie, as always. Newt's more soft-hearted than Alby, and he had interacted with the girl, even if it was for a second. Newt wants to her to be alive, though he's never said anything to Nick. The leader could just tell by the way he would stick with the new greenies for a whole week after she ran into the Maze, and he still does it.
Minho doesn't believe in ghosts. The runner leaning against the wall behind the leader has made his stance clear on multiple occasions. There are no such things as ghosts, so there's no ghost girl in the Maze. Whenever asked about the singing or Hauntings, the boy would just roll his eyes. Once Nick had asked though, he got a chilling answer.
"Then how do you explain the ghostly things if there is no ghost?"
Minho rolled his eyes, though it didn't slow his jog. They were both out running in the Maze and were heading back to the Glade together.
"There is no ghost because there were no remains. Look, we're a bunch of boys thrown into a death trap for what? And then a girl comes and immediately runs into said trap? And completely disappears? I wouldn't put it past the people who put us here to throw in a plant to mess with us."
"A plant?" Nick's brows furrowed.
Minho nodded. "She disappears to never be seen again; we only 'hear her' and get 'haunted' every now and then." He shakes his head. "They put her here to take her out and then use her memory to mess with us. She's with them, probably."
It made sense, in a twisted way. But what were the people in charge if not twisted?
Nick just hopes this won't go as badly as Alby expects it to. The leader has faith that the Gladers won't fall apart.
"Minho and I were returning back to the Glade when we were attacked by a Griever." Nick starts. "We heard it coming, and tried to get out of there, but it found us anyway." The brunette pauses. He had gotten knocked out when the Griever came upon them, so he doesn't really know what happened next.
But Minho does. "Nick got knocked in the head really hard. I thought we were Griever food but…" the Runner drifts off, eyes focused on the ground.
"Minho?" A runner on the Keeper's other side, Simon, asks.
"It just stopped and left." Minho crosses his arms over his chest and looks at Nick. "The tail was swinging around. I know it was about to sting one of us, but it just stopped and took off." Minho looks at the Gladers now. "It was going to kill us. There's no doubt. But it didn't, and that's why I was able to drag Nick back to the Doors."
It went without saying that they hadn't made it through the Doors. That wasn't the real issue. They hadn't had a Griever attack in years. The last one was a few months before the girl went in. They lost a Runner named Louis when he was on his way back to the Glade. He was stung, but he didn't survive it as Gally did.
Whispers start in the crowd of Gladers. Most are confused mutterings.
"Why would it stop? Grievers have always killed us."
"They were lucky to get away. Did the Creators do this?"
"Is the ghost not protecting us anymore? What does she want?"
"Would Nick and Minho be as bad as Gally if they'd gotten stung?"
Nick wants to both cringe and laugh at the last whisper. He just hopes Gally was far away enough to miss it.
Alas, Gally seems to have powerful ears, because he's out of his seat in a second.
"Speaking of Doors," Gally sends a withering glare in the direction of the offending remark before focusing on Thomas. "We need to do something about this shank." The last word is said in a way that is very clear on what he thinks about the greenie. The Keeper raises his crazy eyebrows at Nick, a silent request for permission to speak. Nick lifts his hand in a wait gesture because if they do anything about Thomas before the whole story is out there, Gally would be insufferable.
"Let's just get this out before we make any decisions." Nick beacons Minho forward with an earnest smile. "Minho? Since you know so much more than me... if you will."
The Keeper of the Runners just sends a dirty look at the Leader, before stepping forward. Minho dislikes speaking in front of all the Glade. Not because he's shy or anything, but usually when he has to speak, it's not good news. He especially does not want to talk about the first moments of being trapped in the Maze. He had already given up.
"This shank," Minho began, looking at Gally, "may be jacked, but I'm glad he was in the Maze with us. Nick and I would be Griever food without him."
A quiet fell over the Gladers. Gally crossed his arms and went to stand by the wall. Guess he still had more to say.
Thomas, on the other hand, sits up straighter. While the sense of approval he was getting from some of the boys felt nice, he couldn't just sit there and claim all the credit. He tentatively raised his hand. "It wasn't-", attention turned to the greenie. Thomas took a breath. "We would have all been Griever food if it wasn't for the girl."
That began another round of talking among the Gladers, and Thomas was subjected to another bout of Chuck's super sad eyes. "You didn't say anything!"
"I didn't know if I could!"
"She helped you?"
Thomas looked at Minho, who was supposed to be telling them all this, but it seems that the Keeper was glad to pass him the task. He huffs and turns to face the Gladers, but he didn't stand. "She was at the entrance. We didn't know what to do, so when she told us to follow her, we did. She showed us some gaps in the walls, and we hid in them. Then she left us there."
"The vines did a good job of hiding us." Minho volunteers when Thomas stopped speaking.
"Um, yeah." Thomas decided to not look at everyone and instead focuses on Chuck and Newt at his sides. "A Griever came along though, it was almost gone when Nick started waking up." A few boys hiss in sympathy as if they could feel how terrifying that was. "She had told us that the monsters were sensitive to sound and movement, so I tried to distract it from Nick and Minho."
Thomas pauses then, looking at Nick and Minho, and sending a glance at Gally. Nick made a go-ahead motion. "I just ran from it really…" Thomas wiped his hands on his pants. "I actually ran into her while I was running away from the Griever."
"Wait," Frypan spoke this time from the second row. He's sitting next to the other cooks. "Is she or is she not a ghost?"
"Of course she's not a ghost. They talked to her!" Winston was insistent, which is odd because he usually didn't speak up at Gatherings. Maybe it had to do with the interesting shades the Baggers were turning.
Because if she wasn't a ghost, that meant that either one of the Gladers was pranking Frypan or the girl came into the Glade to prank him. Either way, someone was getting past the Bagger patrols and they didn't like that.
No one turns to Minho to get his opinion. Everyone knew he already didn't believe in ghosts. That left Thomas, who threw his hands up when Chuck began poking him for answers.
"Well?" Nick leans in towards the greenie.
"I-" How was he supposed to say this? "I couldn't tell!"
That sprang a new round of questions. Newt waves his hand sharply, which cuts off most of the Gladers' words. "How come you can't tell? Did you talk to her? Did you touch her at all?"
"I didn't touch her, but we spoke… I asked her name. She couldn't remember it. She said it might've started with an S."
Jacob, the Keeper of the Baggers speaks, "She left before she could've remembered it. The longest it's taken for a Glader to remember their name was Theo. It was two days before he remembered."
The mentioned Builder slid down in his seat while Winston responded. "It only took Mark three hours."
Nick hummed. Most turn their attention to him while some of the Baggers glare at the smug Track Hoe Mark. "So, that's not really definitive. She might not remember it because there's no one with her to help her remember, maybe. Or," the corner of his lips turn down, "she could have died before learning her name."
True silence seemed to echo in the Gathering Hall. Dying without even knowing your name?
"She had a trap!" Thomas interrupted it. "She used the vines to trip the Griever!" He nods to himself. "She cut a vine with a knife, and it made other vines trip the Griever. It's how we were able to get away long enough to trap it in a closing corridor."
"And kill it." Minho adds 'helpfully'.
Gally couldn't seem to stop himself. "You killed a Griever?"
Newt tries to calm the crazy browed boy. "Listen, Gally-"
"Crushed in a wall. Only its head was poking out."
Gally took Minho's words as a go ahead. "We've lived in coexistence with these things for years." He turns to address the whole Glade. "We have clear rules here, and our greenie here," Gally waves at Thomas, "has taken it upon himself to go into the Maze and kill one of them."
"He saved Nick's life," Frypan said.
Gally raises his eyebrows. "He killed a Griever. Who knows what that could mean for us. There needs to be a punishment."
An interesting point, though a misguided one. Nick has been here for a near five years, and he would never call the relationship between the Gladers and the Grievers 'coexistence'. Yes, they lived in the same place, but is it really coexistence when one tries to kill the other? The encounters had stopped two years ago, but something prompted the Griever to show its face today, and no one could pin it on the greenie because he wasn't even there when it attacked.
"Us punishing him won't change anything with the Grievers." Nick stepped up between Gally and where Minho had stepped to the side. He claps a hand on the Runner Keeper's shoulder. "Besides, 'peace' with the Grievers would mean they wouldn't try to kill us everytime they saw us. You were there with him Minho, what do you think we should do with him?"
Nick knew there was a reason Minho encouraged Gally to speak, and he's proven correct when the Runner speaks. "I was scared." Minho swallows. "This shank might be brave, or just plain stupid." Minho raises his eyes to look at all the Gladers. "But whatever it is, it's something we need more of. I say we make him a Runner."
Chaos. Thomas sat up and looked at the Runner in awe and Newt looked like it was the best thing anyone has said all day. Nick winced when various voiced raised to let their thoughts known, especially when Chuck began to chant Thomas's name in glee. He personally agrees with Minho's suggestion. He can tell that the greenie would get into all kinds of trouble if he was stuck in the Glade all day. The guy was just too curious. He waves his hands. "Ow."
Most of the boys quiet down. "Then that's that." Nick smiles at Thomas. "It's your choice now, shank. Do you want to be a Runner? You can choose to do whichever job, but the Keeper can turn you down."
"I- uh, yes- I mean- that'd be great." Thomas nods his head. "A Runner. Yeah, I want to be a Runner." He finally gets out.
"Wonderful!" Nick clasps his hands. He turns toward the Keeper of the Runners while skillfully avoiding Gally's bewildered gaze. "Minho will show you the ropes. Which reminds me, someone should go out and examine the Griever body."
"Should we?"
Thomas, with his newfound confidence, responds to Minho's inquiry. "Of course. You can't say you're not curious about it?"
"Not even a little bit." The Keeper responds fervently when it looks like Gally is about to blow a gasket.
Thomas turns to Nick. "Everyone has said that no one's gotten a really good look at the Grievers up close and gotten away. Now we have one! We could learn something about them. Even the tiniest thing could help out against them."
There was silence as Nick contemplated his words, and Newt decided to fill the gap. "Look, we can send Thomas and Minho out with Alby. Maybe someone else if you think it'll help, but he's got a point."
Nick nods. "Nothing to lose really. I want to go out too." Nick only raises a brow when Minho's eyebrows shoot up to his hairline, as if incredulous on why he'd want to go back out after almost dying. He cast a glance at Alby when the dark-skinned boy steps up beside him. "My head will be better tomorrow. I didn't get a good whiff of the Griever when we passed." His remark earned him an eye roll. He looked at Newt now.
"You'll be fine in charge of the Glade for a bit, won't you?"
Newt thought about his words. Of course, he'd be fine. It wasn't the first time both Nick and Ably went out to sub in for sick Runners after all, but Nick must have thought he was missing something. He may be, actually. "Can you look for the girl?"
Minho's lips tighten, while a contemplating look came over Nick's face.
"We can try," Alby says slowly, "but you know, it's most likely she's not a ghost. If she's alive," Alby emphasizes, when the Baggers start to protest, "That means that she's been avoiding us for a near two years. If she doesn't want to be found, then we won't find anything of her."
"I last saw her by the Griever, so it wouldn't be too much of a bother to look around a bit," Thomas reassures the blonde. Newt cracks a small smile at the greenie.
"Any objections?" Nick asks the Gladers at large.
When no one spoke up, the leader smiled at a successful Gathering completed. "I guess it's been a while we've all been here, so time to get some shut-eye. We'll have another Gathering if we find anything profound from the Griever."
The Keepers, Newt, Alby, Nick, and Thomas remain where they are as the Gladers begin talking among themselves and filling out of the Gathering Hall. The Keepers and the three in command usually stay behind to go over finer details of running the Glade. Anyone can stay to listen, but none ever want to. It's usually just the logistics of feeding the Gladers and general upkeep. Thomas was asked to stay by Alby. Chuck had already gone ahead – he needed a shower after staying at the Maze Doors all night.
This After-Gathering is different for another reason. A Runner named Leo remains where he's seated in the second row. He hadn't gotten a chance to speak to Minho after the three came back into the Maze since he and Nick passed out in the Medjack hut. It wasn't something terribly important, so he didn't want to bring it up in the Gathering, but it did bother him.
"What's up, shank?" Minho asks him when it's clear he's not leaving with the rest of the Runners. "You guys don't have to go out tomorrow if that's what you're wondering."
"Uh, no. It's not that…" Leo trails off. He's gained the attention of the Three in command as well as the Keepers at this point. "I just wanted to let you know that I heard something yesterday."
"From a Glader?" Nick's concern is warming. Leo would have missed it if they hadn't made it back.
"No, in the Maze." Leo sits up straighter. "Before I started back to the Doors, I heard a loud whistle."
"Like the wind?" Minho asks. It's not weird for the sound of the wind to echo off the walls when the winds are particularly strong. The weather was tame yesterday though…
"No, like a person whistle. Kind of like Ron's."
Ron is a Slicer. He's the best at herding the animals because he'd get their attention by sticking both his forefinger and thumb in the corners of his mouth and letting out an ear-splitting whistle. It scared the klunk out of the Gladers sometimes.
Nick frowns. "What section were you running? I don't remember hearing anything like that."
Leo winces. "I was running kind of behind in the section next to yours. You guys might've been halfway back when I heard it. It came from the direction of the Glade."
Nick hums. Minho glances at the Leader. That could have been when they were attacked. If it was, they wouldn't have heard it… even if it was coming from between them and Leo. They were a little preoccupied with a Griever to be hearing whistles. "Thanks for telling us, Leo."
The Runner nods and quickly gets up to leave the Gathering Hall. He wanted to get a shower before all the hot water was used up.
The contemplative silence continued even after Leo left.
"What did you say," Nick began, "about the Grievers being sensitive to sound?"
Minho shares a glance with Thomas. "The girl said not to move or make a sound because the Grievers were sensitive to it. That's all." He says slowly.
"You think the whistle had to do something with the attack." Gally states.
"Well, a Griever doesn't turn away from its food for no reason." Frypan points out.
"They don't come out of nowhere either." Gally fires back.
"We didn't hear it," Minho says. "If it was between Leo and the Glade, then we would have heard it before the Griever appeared. We didn't."
"You think she made the whistle?" Newt looks excited at the prospect. "It could have drawn it away."
"Nick made a small noise in the Maze and the Griever was on its way. A loud whistle could have drawn it away, but…" Thomas trails off.
"But why chase a whistle when it already has a catch?" Alby finishes for him.
Newt can see how Minho's jaw is clenching. "Minho?"
The boys turn to the Runner.
Minho just blows out a breath. "You know what I think about her." The Gladers nod except for Thomas. It might be common knowledge that Minho doesn't think she's a ghost, but the whole 'a trick from the Creators to mess with the Gladers' theory is not. "What if it's planned? Get a Griever to attack, then have it drawn away, and have her save us?"
"Or," Nick didn't want to believe she was one of them, ghost or not. "She knows how to get the Griever's attention. She's had to have encountered them before, so maybe she knows just what makes them tick. If she's alive." Nick finishes when Jacob squints threateningly at him. The Baggers were serious about their patrols.
"We can't know unless she tells us," Newt says.
"We'll just see if she decided to talk to us tomorrow," Thomas tells him. Alby raises a brow behind Newt's back while the blonde is looking at the greenie. "She talked to us yesterday. Maybe she'll do it again? It has to be lonely out there in the Maze…"
"Oh? Lonely?" Frypan asks, sarcasm lining his voice. "Is that why she's always messing with the Kitchen?"
The boys chuckle at Frypan as they begin leaving the Gathering Hall. Logistics can wait.
"If." Thomas says to himself. He's sitting on the grass, leaning against a log off of the space between the showers and the Homestead, waiting for a turn with the showers. He knows he stinks from a night in the Maze.
"You alright?"
The greenie glances up. Minho had walked over without him noticing. The Keeper raises a brow at the new-Runner.
"Uh, yeah. Just thinking." Minho doesn't look like he believes him. The Keeper looks over his shoulder before sitting down on his left. Thomas is confused, and Nick strolling over to his other side to sit only intensifies the feeling.
"Look." The leader begins. He stops, seemingly to gather his thoughts before speaking. "It's a lot. We were in a scary place, and that can be traumatizing." Nick looks in Thomas's eyes and then looks at Minho. "I almost freaked out in the med hut just thinking about it. If either of you needs to talk about it, I'm here okay? Or talk to someone. Newt's pretty good at this stuff."
The leader smiles warmly at the both of them. Minho seems to relax as Thomas nods. It was just a few words, but they did help relieve a tightness in his chest he didn't know was there. Burying the feelings seemed natural, but it didn't need to be. He had friends to rely on. He smiled thinking about it. They weren't alone in this.
The three sat in a comfortable silence as they watched the other Gladers get ready for bed.
Now is a good time to ask. "Hey." Thomas looks at Minho. "Did you notice anything weird about the girl?"
Minho snorts, "Like what? Everything about her?"
"No…" The greenie can't help but wrinkle his nose at the Keeper. "There was something off about her."
"Everything was off about her," Minho says with a roll of his eyes.
Thomas just sinks and turns to Nick in exasperation. The leader almost rolls his own eyes at Minho's responses. They were having such a nice moment too. "What do you mean, greenie? What was so 'off'?"
Thomas turns towards Minho again. "Think Minho. Could you hear her? Because I couldn't."
"What do you mean 'hear her'?" Minho's exasperation leaks full force into his voice. "We talked to her!"
"Like! Footsteps! Did you hear them?"
Nick's gaze bounces back between Thomas and Minho. Thomas is looking expectantly at Minho while the taller boy's face morphed from exasperation to reluctance and finally settles on contemplation.
"I can't really remember," Minho says at last. It wasn't very convincing.
"You think she's still a ghost?" Nick is amused. It seems for every argument saying she's alive there's a counter saying she's a ghost.
"Ghosts don't need to make sounds do they?" Thomas was insistent.
Nick hums and looks at Minho. It looks like the boy is going over his interactions with her and isn't liking what he's coming up with. Hauntings are one thing, but coming face to face with irrefutable evidence?
"Ghosts aren't real." The Keeper mumbles.
Nick does his best to suppress his grin. "We'll see about that."
Nick and Thomas's laughs drown out Minho's dismayed groan.