Disclaimer: I do not own The Maze Runner Series.

The first thing that hit her when they chucked her in the hole was the smell. It was the rancid stench of rotting flesh, wreaking havoc to her lungs, making her throw up despite the thick layer of duct tape and cloth over her mouth. She struggled to take the blindfold off as well, rubbing her head this way and that. Her face rubbed against pebbles and tree roots, giving her the vague idea that she was underground.

"Put the lid over it. We need to cover the smell," an unfamiliar voice said.

A dragging sound came from above. Leaves and tiny debris rained on her, pelting all over her bound body. When it was the done the air grew humid. The stench of decay was trapped in the enclosed place.

She screamed for hours, hoping against everything that a random Glader would stumble upon her hellhole and hear her. If there was one thing she knew without a doubt that very moment, it was that she didn't want to die. And she definitely did not fancy the idea of being buried alive.

"Alex! Alex where are you?"

Her heightened hearing perked at her name. It was Anton. Jeff called for her too.

'I'm right here! I'm right shucking here!' she wanted to scream. The gag was too thick and no more than muffled moans escaped from it.

Please Gods, help me.

Her back hit a wall of soil, which gave her an idea. She twisted her awkwardly bound body until she faced the earthen barrier. Then, with a sense of vigor brought about by desperation, she pressed her face against its abrasive texture and rubbed on it. Up. Up. Up. Something snagged against her cheek but she didn't stop. It cut the skin on her face but she didn't care. She could rub her face raw if it meant she could get a chance at climbing out of that place. Victory erupted in her chest as the blindfold slid down below her eyebrow.

"Wherever you are hang in there alright? We're gonna find you!" It was Clint. She rubbed harder, more ferociously until the cloth slipped down her face and onto her neck. She squinted as the blurry images came into view, her eyes adjusting from having been blinded for hours.

"Alex!" The voices grew further. She realized with horror that they were moving away.

'Come back!' she screamed. 'I'm right here! Please! No! Nooo!'

Silence.

That was it. That had been her chance. They didn't find her. Her heart thundered in her chest as the realization dawned on her. She may not have another chance of being rescued.

The tears came in droves, blinding her once again, stinging the cuts on her face. She still didn't want to die. But the logical part of her couldn't shake out the possibility, the likely possibility of it happening either.

Hours had passed. Maybe it could have been days. Alex lost track of time. She was thirsty. The entire left side of her body hurt. She knew for a fact that she stunk. Restlessness plagued her. But she didn't dare move, didn't dare quench her curiosity of what was lying behind her. It was the source of all this god-awful stench.

When her vision returned she saw the hole she was in. Its depth and rectangular shape told her it was a grave. But the dead giveaway though had been the crude glass lid above her, filtering dull sunlight on to her bound form. Jeff's stories came to her mind. On nights when they found it hard to sleep he would whisper about the horrors that have happened in the Glade. He swore to them that they were all true stories.

"Have you forgotten? We're not exactly up-to-date with the world's fictional urban legends now are we?" he would point out.

One such story was about a boy who went down the hole in the middle of the Glade, where the Box would come up on a weekly basis. He had nothing on but the clothes on his back and a thick sturdy rope around his waist which the other Gladers held on to and lowered at his command. Needless to say the story ended in a nightmare. When they pulled him back up he was, as Jeff put it, half the person he used to be. The story went that they buried him under a slab of glass as a warning to all Gladers of the repercussions they might get when they attempt to escape.

Alex knew it would take less than half a carcass for her to lose her sanity at that moment. The last thing she would allow to happen to herself was to go bat crazy and roll around the stinking grave in her own klunk. She would rather die trying to find a way out.

Another hour passed before the glass above her shifted sideways, allowing a draft of fresh air to flow inside the hole. Alex looked up just in time to see Glenn jump down and land beside her. Before she could protest he aimed a knife on her neck, its tip pressed firmly on the horizontal wound he had given her earlier when she tried to escape. She could feel it digging open the newly formed scab.

Alex refused to budge.

"Good. You're smart enough to keep quiet," Glenn said, smiling as though he was complimenting her for something as mundane as her cooking. She raised an eyebrow at him, green eyes daring him to do more damage than what he had already done. And he did. She groaned in pain as he pulled her into a sitting position. Her muscles had gone stiff for being stuck in an unnatural position for too long. When he looked at her, Alex wondered how someone with such kind eyes could do something this terrible, not just to her but to anybody for that matter.

"I know you have a lot of questions running around that head of yours," he said. "Why you? What's happening? Oh my Godcould this get any more shucked up? And for what it's worth I wish I could give you a fitting answer."

"Hurry up with your speech, slinthead. We don't have much time left." It was the dark-haired boy whose name she couldn't remember.

"Slim it, shuckface," Glenn shot back. He turned back at her. "Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. Take my word for it, shank. If you've been here as long as I have, you'd realize too that you will be willing to do just about anything to get out. Lucky for you, you wouldn't be hanging around this shucked-up hellhole for long."

There was a long pause. A sense of foreboding came to her, making the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.

"You are going to die. And we are going to get the blueprints so that Minho, with his merry band of runners, can lead us outta here. I know you're chum with him but I'm sure he'll thank me for this."

Alex was frozen in place, in utter shock of what Glenn had just told her. The blueprints. The candidate. Minho. Van's final message. You need to help him get the blueprints they need...His life depends on it. It was the blueprints in exchange for Minho's life. Then her life in exchange for the blueprints.

The fight in her was zapped away at the Builder's revelation. She could barely gather the strength to give them a hard time as the three boys roughly hauled her out of the hole like a bound-up boar.

"It's early afternoon," Johann said. "We need to start moving so we can make it back before sundown."

'Move where?' Alex thought through the haze that filled her mind. The two other boys grunted in agreement. Glenn cut the ropes binding her ankles.

"We'll be going for a bit of a walk shank. Rest assured that your contribution to these trials will be considered valuable and appreciated."

What?

The last thing Alex saw was Glenn's kind smile before the bag was replaced over her head yet again.

Minho knew something was off the second he stepped back in the Glade. Everyone looked weary and the air was thick with tension, like a taut string on the verge of snapping.

The Runners from the north and east gates also returned a minute later. It wasn't long before they noticed that something was off as well. One of them stopped a Bagger and began asking questions.

"Minho." It was Jeff calling out to him, with Anton right behind him.

"Nice to see you too shank. I missed the party again, didn't I?"

"It's Alex," the Bagger snapped, not in the mood to be cheeky. "Did he mention anything to you? Anything at all last night?"

Minho paused, taking in Jeff's weary mood, the urgent mention of Alex's name, and everyone else's jumpy demeanor. His stomach lurched uneasily. "Just that he got killer cramps. Didn't sound too happy about it." Then he added cautiously, "what's wrong?"

"He's missing. Nobody's seen him since this morning."

This time the stomach-lurching got so bad he thought he might throw up. "But that's impossible!" he blurted out. "How can someone disappear in the shucking Glade? It's not like they have anywhere to disappear to." If it was possible, he felt more out of breath standing there listening to the news than when he did running in the maze.

"That's what we've been telling ourselves the whole day. Fat load of good that did us," was Anton's snarky reply. "But Minho has a point. It's not possible to disappear inside the Glade. The only place people really disappear to is..." His blue-eyed gaze went to the west gate in front of him.

"Slim it," Minho shot back. Jeff shook his head. "C'mon man. Alex would rather join the Slicers than go wandering in there. You know how terrified that pansy is of the maze."

"Look, I'm not saying he was stupid enough to go in there because it got him curious. Be we got to think of the possibilities. While you guys were out running we've turned the entire place over and we still didn't find him."

A commotion by the south gate caught the trio's attention. To their surprise, Glenn stepped out of the gate followed by two other Gladers.

"That's Johann and Seb!" Jeff exclaimed. "But those guys are Baggers how did they..?"

Newt and another Runner named Frankie came out of the maze last. The latter slapped Johann and Seb upside the head. From the bruises on their faces, it looked like the duo seemed to have put up a fight.

Minho, Jeff and Anton jogged towards the growing crowd. Alby and Newt were stopping Frankie from having another go at Seb.

"Slim it shank! No fighting!" Alby exclaimed.

"Yo! What are those slintheads doing shucking around the shucking maze? They got no business there."

"Been asking them the same question shank," Newt replied, spitting on the ground by his feet.

"And?" Minho asked, growing impatient. Alex was still nowhere to be found and they had to choose that same day to break the most sacred rule of all.

Newt nodded to Glenn as he languidly crossed his arms. "Go on. Tell them what you told me."

The shorter boy raised his hands defensively at the look on Minho's face. After all, the Keeper of the Runners was known for having one of the shortest fuses among the Gladers.

"I want to get out of this place just as badly as you do. I had to do my part."

"You're a Builder. Your part is to make sure we got enough roofs to cover all of our heads." Alby's voice was calm but there was no mistaking the anger bubbling underneath his cool demeanor.

"I'm gonna ask you again shuckface. What's a Builder and two Baggers doing out there in the maze?" Minho stepped closer until he was nose to nose with Glenn, his hard glare never leaving his face.

"I'm helping you man! I'm giving the Creators what they want so that you can finally get them the blueprints-aagh!"

In the blink of an eye Minho grabbed the stocky boy by the collar of his shirt and had him pinned against the wall. Even as he grinned at Glenn his anger was palpable. It gave his dark eyes a sinister glint in them. "I don't know if you've noticed but I have no idea what you're talking about." He pulled the Builder towards him and with surprising strength, banged him back against the wall. "I'm gonna ask you one last time and don't you dare make me look stupid with your vague answers." The grin in his face vanished, replaced by a cold poker face. "What the fuck were you doing out there?"

Glenn's own baby blue eyes hardened. When he spoke, his voice was flat and emotionless. "We did what the Creators told me to do. We took Alex in the maze. They said he needs to die."

It was as if someone had flipped off a switch inside Minho's head. He lost touch of everything. The gasps of shocked Gladers were replaced by a sharp, ringing sound so irritating it fueled his rage further. Dark spots danced in front of his eyes. His limbs, especially his hands, seemed to have noticed how he had winked out and began to have lives of their own. He had lost count of how many times he banged the back of the boy's head against the wall. The only thing that registered to him was that when he was done, there was a lot of blood on his hands and Glenn wasn't waking up.

Author's Note: (Thoughts while writing down Glenn's stupid speech) You're an idiot you know that? 1) If you really wanted Alex dead you had the knife and the Deadheads to begin with...The MAZE?! Get out. 2) I'm saying this with all honesty..I'm shucking tired of those blueprints. It's the same feeling I had reading The Death Cure. Blueprints. Blueprints. Blueprints. Seriously. Stop. 3) Minho you're obviously being shucked by WICKED big time. I pity you.

I fell asleep twice trying to proofread this chapter. Haha! Sorry for some unseen typos.

Best regards to the following awesome reviewers: Selena, TheLastTargaryen, Olivia, theevilsquiddancer, gossamermouse101, DauntlessFangirl4and6, valhallababe, the Med-Jack, popsmission, msspicyjalapeno, OnyeezU, TheAliensDidIt, aimesami, K, Monkey D. Writer, and A Shadow Rose. I love you guys! Thanks for letting me know your thoughts, no matter how vague. Rest assured I always try to understand what you want to convey right down to the fifth exclamation point in that sentence. =) But yeah, seriously I just love you period.

PS: I love how Frankie makes a cameo in this chapter... I love playing with minor characters, developing them further than in the novels. They may not have been bff with Thomas and Teresa but they existed in the Glade. I'm sure they all have stories of their own waiting to be explored. =)