Minho found three o'clock the perfect time to grab a snack from the Kitch. (When Thomas asked if Frypan would get mad at them for doing so, Minho answered they needn't worry about him. Apparently, the Runners had the privilege of getting their food whenever the hell they wanted to, especially the Keeper. Thomas asked no further questions.)

Minho knocked on the Kitch's front door three times before entering, Thomas close behind. The smell of a porridge-in-the-making had taken over the room. Thomas' stomach rumbled.

"Oh, hey, Minho, Th—" Frypan began from behind his counter, stopping mid-sentence. His gaze hopped back to Minho and stayed there. "How many times do I have to tell you—"

"Ha-ha," Minho said, the corners of his lips quirking up. "Just give us some food, yeah? You know the drill."

Although Frypan pressed his lips into a thin line, his eyes smiled. He put away the knife in his hand—by the faint aroma lingering in the air, one could tell he'd been chopping cucumbers—and walked to a nearby cupboard. "I have your..." Upon opening the cupboard's door, a rush of white substance fell to the floor with a soft humph. Frypan squinted his eyes at the mess and pinched the bridge of his nose.

However, Minho didn't seem half as frustrated, if raised eyebrows and a dimple in his cheek were anything to go by. "And the Flourboy strikes again. This is, what, the third time this month?"

Thomas, who'd noticed the front door was still open, closed it. He couldn't help it, he felt like a third wheel. Obviously Frypan and Minho were friends, and he hadn't quite yet reached that status with either of them.

Frypan gave a slight shake of his head. "Can you imagine, after all this time? I would've thought—hoped would be the better word—he'd give up after a while, you know? Stubborn little brat."

A knowing smile took ahold of Minho's features. "Right? What's been it now, a year?"

"Almost exactly a year, yeah. Okay, anyways, I'm gonna grab something from the back and possibly bring some back-up; there's no way I'm cleaning all this klunk up alone. Stay right here, and for the love of God, don't touch anything." With those words, Frypan exited the room from the back-door. He didn't have to look at Thomas for him to know the last warning was meant for him.

Minho brought his right hand up to magnify his voice. "Well, hurry up, will you?" And then, in mumbles, "I can practically feel my hairs getting grey already."

Thomas chuckled. "He's been gone for literally five seconds," he noted.

Minho turned to face him. "Yes, but that's not what's important. What is important is that I've wasted five, soon to be more, seconds of my life on waiting for food that I was supposed to get in an instant. I'm never gonna get those seconds back, man."

Thomas raised his eyebrows. "And what would've you done with those seconds?"

Minho shook his head whilst glancing upwards. "Probably thought of a way to end world hunger, but now we'll never know, will we?" He stalked towards the cabinet Frypan had previously used and grabbed a few cucumber cubes from it. He shoved them into his mouth, in the process forming the universal hush sign.

...maybe that warning wasn't meant for me after all. Who knew. "Don't you think he'll notice?"

"Oh," Minho started, mouth full, "he'll notice alright. But we won't be here when that happens."

Thomas liked that plan. "What's up with the flour thing, though? I mean, who does that? And why?"

Minho, while grabbing more cubes, said, "Can't tell you, it's a secret. Wait... are those—" He dashed away from the cucumbers, back to Thomas. A moment later, the door opened, revealing Frypan and two other Cooks, Tolen and Case. The latter ones each held a plate in their hands, which by the looks of it, were meant for Thomas and Minho.

There was a line between Frypan's eyebrows, and his eyes were narrowed. Something was wrong.

Minho leaned in closer to Thomas. "Take your plate," he whispered, "and wait for me outside, okay?"

Thomas looked him into the eyes, gave a small nod. An uncomfortable silence fell upon the room while Thomas made his way to Tolen, took the plate with pancakes, and left. During the whole process, nobody looked him in the eye, hell, they didn't even look at his general direction. Something had happened, and once again, Thomas wasn't allowed to know what exactly it'd been. That's all gonna change when I'm officially a part of the Runners. Then they just can't hide things from me.

Intense whispers broke out the moment he shut the door behind him. For a brief moment, he tried to listen closely in hopes of catching a few sentences here and there, but all the sounds blended into one. He gave up shortly after he realised this.

With nowhere else to go, Thomas went to the Eating Area. Conveniently enough, it was right around the corner.

Minho came looking for him about ten, maybe twenty, minutes later. His whole demeanor had changed from happy and somewhat sarcastic to thoughtful and solemn. A strange glint in his eyes gave away he wasn't actually in this world at the moment. What the fuck happened in there?

Minho took a seat on the other side of the table, put his hands on the surface, and rested his head on them.

Okay, let's look at the facts here. Frypan was mad or confused about something, but he wasn't so before going to get the other Cooks. That means that either Cooks told him something in that short period of time or somebody visited the far end of the Kitch to drop off the news. The second, although plausible, isn't very likely. So. The Cooks told him something. Frypan confronted Minho about it. Minho got upset for some reason. I don't think it's because he wasn't aware of the thing Frypan told him—he seems to know almost everything around here—and that means... That means the info Frypan learned was something that was being kept a secret from him, and now that he found out, he was pissed. Was he mad at Minho or everyone who kept it from him in general?

Thomas's gaze lingered on Minho. His scrunched up posture and short, shallow breaths indicated things had been personal. "So," Thomas said a few minutes later, "what secret did you try to keep from him?"

Life poured into Minho in a matter of seconds. He sat up straight, his gaze accusing. "What?"

"You do know that keeping secrets from your friends never does anyone any good, right? They always come out one way or another."

"You shuck—you listened to us through the door!" Although he didn't mean to do it, the sentence sounded more like a question than anything.

Which means I was right. "I didn't. It's rather obvious from the way you're acting right now."

Minho squinted his eyes. "Is that so? Are you trained in reading body language or someth—I mean, not that you're right about anything."

Thomas humphed. "The question is not about whether or not I'm right; the question's what secret were you keeping from him?"

"I wasn't."

"If you say so."

"...Okay, maybe I was. Not that it's any of your business."

Knew it. "Never said it was. Wanna talk about it?"

Minho's face expressed so many different emotions at once, it almost looked emotionless. "You're trying to mind-fuck me."

"Why would I?" Honestly, Minho was right. Thomas himself had trouble understanding why he acted the way he did. It was almost like his real personality had taken over—the one he didn't remember ever having. Now that he thought about it, the same feeling had overcome him when he was at the Skizzle and trying to get himself the better end of the bargain.

Minho shook his head. "I don't know, but it's weird." Confusion was evident in his voice, as if his brain was trying to process multiple things at once and thus not being able to process anything at all.

"No, it's not. You're just making it weird." Thomas almost felt like he didn't have the control over what he said. Which was absolutely ridiculous.

"My brain. It hurts," Minho complained.

It took Thomas ten minutes of convincing before Minho agreed to tell him what he wanted to know. "It's not even that big of a deal, really," Minho began. "This Runner, Lahey, got badly injured a few days back. Has been at the Med-House ever since. The thing is, Lahey's one of Fry's closest friends. I didn't want to tell him what'd happened because I knew he'd freak out. We wouldn't have gotten good food for a week straight, you know; he just is like that. Besides, Lahey looks like absolute klunk. We—we're not sure if he's gonna make it."

How badly can one get hurt by running in circles all day? The worst that should be able to happen is stumblingover your own damn feet. The fuck did Lahey do? Oh no. He got bitten, didn't he? Although he really wanted to get the answers to those questions, he knew Minho had reached his absolute limit of what he was willing to tell him. "Poor guy. No wonder you didn't want Frypan to know."

.oOo.

The evening rolled around, and Thomas sat at the table, eating some horrid-looking porridge. What's this even supposed to be? Oatmeal? Sure doesn't look like it. An extra large piece of cooked carrot attached itself onto Thomas' fork, slimey as all hell. Tastes like absolute garbage, he thought as he put the said carrot into his mouth. The things I have to do in order to get something to eat around here.

A quick look around the table told him the others weren't quite enjoying their food, either. However, nobody came out and said it, which was odd. Normally at least one of them would crack and complain.

Thomas finished his plate first out of the whole table—which was something that'd never happened before. He took his dishes and left, giving everyone a questioning stare right before doing so.

Once the dishes were in their rightful place, he headed off towards his sleeping bag. There wasn't much for him to do anyways, so why not just call it a night?

As he went on to do exactly that, a familar mop of curly hair walked by. "Chuck?" Thomas asked.

Chuck's shoulders tensed up, but he didn't stop.

"Hey, Chuck, wait!" Thomas took a few large steps to reach him. He then proceeded to go in front of him, seeing as there was no other way of putting a stop to Curly's attempt to run away.

Chuck tried to escape by maneuvering to the left. Thomas prevented that by mimicking his actions. Chuck tried the other way, but the result stayed the same.

Giving up, he looked into Thomas' eyes. "What?"

Thomas was taken aback by Chuck's cold tone. Sure, he wasn't expecting overwhelming friendliness, either, but... "Are you alright?"

"As soon as you let me leave, yeah," he stated, crossing his arms.

"I—um—did something happen?"

"What makes you think that?" Chuck asked, his face not portraying a single emotion.

"You normally aren't like this... What's going on?"

"You haven't known me for even a week; I wouldn't say you know me well enough to know who I normally am or am not. Now, can I go?"

Although Thomas didn't give a single indication of moving away, Chuck somehow saw it as a win and dashed by him.

Thomas was left with mixed emotions.

.oOo.

The next few days passed by in a blur. He continued his training to become a Runner, and consequently got better acquainted with Minho. The guy didn't turn out to be half as bad as he'd thought, not that he'd thought him to be awful to begin with. They had a similar sense of humour, which of course was a big plus. As for Chuck, Thomas didn't see him once. He didn't know if it just happened to go like that or Chuck was genuinely ignoring him. The two of them weren't good enough friends for Thomas to feel bad or anything, but it still bothered him on some level.

The food hadn't gotten any better. If Minho was right, then they had a few more days to suffer before getting to eat decent food again, provided Lahey's condition didn't worsen in that period of time.

Every time Thomas asked about how Lahey managed to get injured by running circles, Minho pretended not to hear. That one time he got really annoyed at Thomas for asking the same thing over and over again, so he'd shaken his head and said, "I literally cannot tell you that, you understand? Not until the day you become a Runner."

Today, Thomas was excited. It was the day before the official end of his training, which meant tomorrow was the ceremony. (Apparently every time a Greenie got himself a proper job, the Gladers threw a party. They called it the ceremony because, well, in a way it was one. Thomas wasn't one to complain.)

Most of the Gladers kept on ignoring him. Now that he thought about it, he hadn't talked to anyone else except for Minho, Galileo, and Newt. The latter two he only spoke with during the meals, and even them only a couple of words at a time, so did they really count? He'd of course tried to speak with other Gladers as well, but they never answered him. The conclusion was that the stranger from that one day had been right: Galileo really had given everyone an order not to speak with him.

Today, Thomas wanted to visit the graveyard. He had no other motive to do it other than he was curious about the number of people who'd died during the Glade Experiment.

Because that's apparently what all this was, an experiment. He'd learned that a day ago when Galileo and Minho discussed it at lunch. Well, truth be told, they didn't come flat out and say it; they were talking about different theories as to why they were there, and this was just the most logical one. (The full theory was that they were in a radical reality TV-show. Everyone sent to the Glade had previously agreed to it because they'd get some sick money from it once the show came to an end.)

Thomas pushed some branches out of the way and stepped into a small clearing. The graveyard. A quick glance told him there were only seven crosses poking out from the ground. Only? God, there should be none. If this really is a reality TV-show, then there shouldn't be anyone fucking dying.

He inched closer to the first cross; it was about a meter and a half in height. Nothing too fancy, just two large branches put together, and it didn't seem to be all that old, perhaps two months the most. What captured his attention, though, was the small wooden plate hanging down from the cross. He leaned closer to it, careful not to step on the bumpy part of the ground, to see the writing. Ite, a Runner, 1.07.02. Death from a Griever bite. From what he knew, it meant the twenty-third day of the eleventh month of the second year from when the Experiment started. That was about... three? months ago. What a way to go... He must've suffered so much. He shook his head and moved on to the next grave.

This one was a tad bit smaller. It read, Vetica, a Runner, 2.11.16. Death from a Griever bite.

Another one read, Connor, Keeper of the Runners, 2.03.17. Death from suicide. However, the last word was, rather clumsily, struck through, and something else was written above it. Thomas examined it closely, and finally concluded it must've said, a broken heart. He didn't know what to think about that.

Two other crosses stated their owner had died from suicide. The sixth one there said, Nick, a Builder, 3.02.11. Death from the Box. Let this half-shank be a warning to all: You can't escape through the Box Hole.

Dear God, this was like, what, a month ago? Thomas stepped away from that one fast, feeling creeped out.

Okay, this's the last one. The cross reached about a meter in height, and it's plate read, Stephen, a Cook, 1.01.31. Death from falling off a wall. The 'n' from the guy's name was extra small, as it wouldn't have fit onto the plate any other way. It felt bittersweet seeing this.

Thomas let out a long breath. He couldn't help but wonder what those guys' life must've been like. How they—ouch! Thomas tripped over something and fell, brought his hands in front of him to soften the blow. A thump! was heard the moment his hands touched the ground. What in the world? He pushed himself up, now kneeling. A patch of brown could be seen from under the grass and leaves; he cleared out the area more to make out what exactly was hidden under it.

A coffin. A real, almost full-sized coffin. Thomas scrambled away from that place as soon as he discovered it, horrified. Why was this coffin so near the surface? And why wasn't there a cross?

His panicked mind found it best to cover the freaky thing up again. It's gonna be like I was never here. As he did that, he noticed a faded writing near the top of the wooden box. It caught his interest immediately, as it was so different from what he'd seen on the other graves. Unfortunately, he couldn't make out what was written there; the nature had done its work. The only part that was readable was the most bottom part: 21/06/01. It must've been the date of death, but... why was it written backwards? Shouldn't the year come before the—what was that? Thomas' head snapped up; he looked around. He could've sworn he heard someone's footsteps nearby. Fuck. He finished up his task quickly and left, not once looking back. That was horrible. I'm never doing that again. Never.

He got the off sense of somebody's eyes on him. "Hello?" he asked. He kept walking, however, as he was too spooked out to dare stop.

Nobody answered. He was planning on calling out once more, but...

Something heavy jumped onto his back, forcing him to fall. The air was pressed from his lungs, and it hurt like hell when his face made direct contact with the ground.

"You're not real!" screamed the person from the top of Thomas, his words nearly incoherent. "Shuck get out of my head! Why do I keep seeing you?!" He hit Thomas on the back with his fists, hard.

Thomas struggled to free himself from the lunatic but with little success. "What the fuck are you on about?" he asked in return, trying to hit the guy with his feet.

"GET! OUT! OF! MY! HEAD!" he screamed, hitting Thomas with each word he spoke. "YOU'RE DEAD, YOU'RE SHUCK DEAD!"

"Get off of me!" Thomas managed to turn himself to such an angle that he could push the lunatic off, which he of course did the very second the opportunity came. He scrambled away from him, and when he felt he had enough distance between them, he stood up and ran. The guy very nearly caught up with him multiple times, and every time it happened, Thomas got a mini heart-attack.

"HELP!" he yelled when they neared the Middle and there was an actual chance of being heard. "He's—" Oomph!

The stranger tackled Thomas to the ground once more, causing him even more pain than the first time.

The world blurred, blended into the colour black with a couple of brighter dots among it. And then, the weight was lifted from him. Thomas gasped for air, a part of his mind irrationally fearing he'd lost his sight for good. The noise coming in barely made any sense; the distorted sounds could almost be seen as colours. The world was fucked up big time, and it was such a relief to sense everything coming back together again.

"Co—Thomas! Are you okay?!" Thomas couldn't understand whose voice it was, but it must've come from that blurry shape up above.

"Have been better," Thomas answered. The words came out slow and scratchy, not at all like his usual tone.

"You look—Jeff! Will you hurry up?! And you—Rist— go find Clint! Go!" Newt. The voice definitely belonged to Newt. "You... just don't move, okay? Don't shuck move. I'll be right back." The shape bounced away, leaving Thomas stare at what ought to be the sky.

Deep breaths in, deep breaths out. You're okay. Pull yourself together, and you'll be grand.

The sense of smell came back first. Dirt, primarily, and sweat lingered in the air, became fractionally stronger with every breath. Hearing, yes, he could now differentiate farther off sounds from the ones closer. ("—Keep him still! I swear to god, if you let him go... Gally!—") He struggled with getting his sight back to normal; his eyes wouldn't cooperate, wouldn't focus. Dark figures dashed around him, some of them were in a bunch somewhere farther off. Come on, FOCUS!

"Thomas!" This Jeff had evidently arrived.

Jeff's face popped into Thomas' field of vision, investigating something in his face. "I can't focus my eyes; I can't see straight! Do some—" Slap!

Bitch hit me! "Did you just—whoa." Sharp as a knife, everything around him. He could see particles of dust flying around, not to mention other people's detailed bodies.

"Better?" Jeff asked, pulling Thomas from the ground into a sitting position.

"Thank you, I..." The words ran out the moment he saw a crazed boy, eyes bulging out of his head like the ones of fish out of water. Veins in his arms popped out in a way that wasn't natural, and the strangled noises he made... A Bagger and a couple of Builders held him in his place, not letting him move a centimeter.

"...and maybe put some..."

Thomas hadn't realised Jeff was still talking to him. "Excuse me," he said, distracted. "I need to..." Ignoring all the pain, ignoring Newt's order to stay put, ignoring his best judgement, Thomas stood up and faltered towards the small crowd. Towards him, his attacker.

The veins were black, and his forehead glistened with sweat. He looked so out of it.

"Thomas, what are you—"

Thomas punched his attacker square in the jaw, unable to contain himself. A lot of yelling ensued; a pair of hands pulled him back. He didn't fight it. Instead, he spat out a blob of blood.

"Calm down! We must all just calm the shuck—"

"Ley?" Frypan's voice echoed across the clearing. Everything went quiet; even the birds stopped singing. Gladers' heads turned. "Oh my God, Lahey...?"

A large circle had formed around Thomas, Newt, Galileo, and Thomas' attacker, who turned out to be Lahey. Wait. Wasn't Lahey Frypan's best—Fuck.

"What are you doing to him? Let him go! He hasn't done anything wrong," Frypan said. His hands trembled as he reached out to push the Builders away from his friend. "What have you done to yourself...?" he whispered, but it was more of a rhetorical question than anything.

Everybody's eyes were on Frypan; nobody dared to move. Thomas caught on to things quickly: Frypan and Lahey must've been together. He couldn't imagine any other reason as to why Frypan sounded so incredibly devastated.

Lahey brought his head closer to Frypan's, tilted it to the left. "Fry?"

"For the love of all that's holy, you've managed to outdo yourself this time. Y'know," Frypan spoke, "I really thought you couldn't do anything more stupid than the Pickle Incident, but... guess I was shuck wrong, wasn't I?"

Some kid in the circle whispered quite loudly to somebody else, "What's going on? Why's everything quiet?"

Frypan turned around in the speed of light, his gaze fixating on the poor boy who'd opened his mouth. "You! Shut all your holes right now, or I swear to God, you're gonna find out what it feels like to get your eyeballs poked out of your head one at a time and fed to you."

The boy turned green but stayed quiet.

"I don't—what's happening? Why am I here?"

Frypan's attention was back on Lahey in an instant. "Because you shuck moron went ahead and got yourself the Bite. I told you, didn't I, that you'd end up like this one day. But no, you wouldn't listen, had to do your own thing. 'It's the only job I want to do,' you said. 'I can't imagine doing anything else,' you said. Well, here's your shuck pay for it."

"I didn't—I'm sorry." Lahey had trouble pronouncing the words, as if his vocal cords tired fast.

"Sorry. Sorry? Like a shuck sorry's gonna cut it."

"What about..." Lahey whispered, his head moving even closer to Frypan's, their mouths now mere centimeters apart.

Before anything could happen, Lahey's body jerked violently, and the crazed look came back to his eyes. The Builders kept him in place although it wasn't a simple task. Frypan stumbled away.

The bubble popped. Birds came alive once more, and the Gladers awoke from their silence. It was as if a colony of ants had woken from a deep sleep.

The crowd swallowed Frypan.

Thomas blinked.

"Drag him to the Pit," shouted Newt, his hand pointing towards the general direction of where they should go, "and tie him up! Now!"

The crowd broke out in whispers and yells. Thomas inched closer to Newt. "Hey," he began, touching Newt's shoulder to gain his attention. "what the fuck's going on?"

Newt shuddered but turned around. Dark blue bags rested under his bloodshot eyes. His brows furrowed. He didn't look sixteen or seventeen at that moment; he looked more like thirty. An unfamiliar gleam watched back at Thomas from Newt's dark, blue eyes. "Remember Grievers? Bloody Lahey over there got stung by one a couple of days back. And this," his gaze fell upon Lahey, "is the consequence. Only gets worse from here on out."

"You're gonna keep him in the Pit all that time?"

Newt's face lost all emotion. "Not really, no."

A/N. Hello! I'm back once more to bring you a new chapter. Unfortunately, I'm not too sure when the next one's coming up, as my exam period is starting, and I likely won't have the time to work on this story for the next three weeks. But who knows. Maybe I'll try to hide myself from the stress by drowning myself into the world of writing. At any rate, I just thought I'd give you all a tiny warning. I hope you're still enjoying the story, though!