For a split of second they floated through the air submerged in a surreal weightless feeling.

Then, they were falling. Eleanor's stomach jumping to her throat.

In a blink, her surroundings switched like a light being turned off, the world around her immediately becoming even darker, as her feet found ground.

Her knees gave out as she stumbled to the floor, the knock sending a slash of pain through her already aching body. A pair of hands helped her up before she could take in anything else.

She heard two pairs of feet, that could only belong to Minho and Newt, hit the ground behind her.

Through the sudden limited light her gaze shifted from Frypan, who had aided her up, to the new enviroment she found herself in.

Their surroundings were pitch black, the only exception being the faint light filtering from above, where a gaping hole seemed to float in the darkness. The illuminated world they had left behind seemed to mock them from that high possition.

Eleanor quickly rummaged through her bag for a flashlight she knew they had stored there and turned it on, lighting the darkness.

The girl blinked.

The Gladers stood in a tight group. She looked around. Dark grey walls curved around them, damp and slimy with what seemed like thick oil. Those seemed to be trapping them in as a seemingly endless tunnel stretched out before them.

When the rest realised Eleanor was the source of light, they parted a path to let her get to the front.

Her heart pounded as she stepped forward, her steps echoing against the concrete walls in this new-found silence.

She heard Newt and Minho's steps follow hers and, who could only be Chuck, trotting to catch up with them, probably too scared to be left alone at the back. She couldn't blame him.

Eleanor had reached Teresa and Thomas' side when she stopped. Her flashlight cut through the darkness ahead.

No one uttered a word as they gazed at the tunnel for a few seconds.

Eleanor's heart was beating very fast.

"There!" Teresa exclaimed, pointing.

Eleanor squinted her eyes and saw it too.

Way ahead a small squared glass, that looked to be attached to the wall, reflected the beam of light from the flashlight. Beneath, laid an old computer keyboard.

"A computer." Thomas muttered in confusion.

A loud thud shook the ground. Screams and yells broke the quiet atmosphere as they ricocheted through the round walls.

And then, they were running, Chuck screaming next to her. A Griever had jumped in after them.

The light wobbled around them in a macabre show of lights and shadows as the flashlight moved along with Eleanor's hand.

Thomas was the first to reach the computer and banged the keyboard in a desperate attempt for a way out. The first line of Gladers, Eleanor in the lead, gathered around him.

The glass immediately lit up with a greenish glow. Several straight lines were displayed across the screen.

Behind them, boys continued to scream in a terrifying symphony, the sound of metal against metal indicated the Gladers where trying to defend themselves.

Thomas hit the keyboard a few times in panic. The lines were replaced by stars one by one and then the screen turned red and turned back to the lines.

"Wait, It's a password!" Newt had to yell to be heard.

The Gladers were pushing against them in their haste to get away from the creature. Eleanor stole glances at her friends that had been inmersed in battle once again.

Another loud slam and a second Griever had joined the first, weapons at the ready, it wasted no time to advance.

Newt and Minho wasted no extra time and joined the fight. Eleanor's panic increased.

A password, a paswrod...

No one had even mentioned a password, or a code of any kind.

Thomas was desperately now typing random things into the computer, muttering to himself. "Wicked... Grievers..."

Each time, the light tinted red washed over them.

Chuck was sobbing loudly. Teresa, like herself, seemed to be torn between joining the fight and helping Thomas.

The Greenies gazed at each other, seeming to have some sort of non-verbal comunication.

Eleanor tried to focus. There was no doubt they would be slaughtered if they didn't find the answer and they clearly did not have time for guessing.

Seven letters. What could it be?

Unless, they weren't letters.

A recent memory came to her, it had been burried behind a confusing kiss and guilty feelings but then, it called to her attention. She had forgotten to ask Minho. What if that was the answer?

Newt was closest to her. She quickly reached him as he was swinging a spear at a blade-fingered mechanical limb along with Zart.

She called to his attention. "Newt! What if it's the sections? You know, the Maze sequence."

Newt seemed to take a few second to comprehend what she had said.

"At this rate, it could be anything." He grunted back, dodging a deadly swing from the Griever. "I guess it's worth a shot. Ask Minho."

She had no time to answer as she ran to her best friend, feeling extremely exposed without a weapon. Her own knife had been left, forgotten, not having been recovered from inside a Griever's body.

"Minho!" She yelled.

The boy whipped around from the united front the runners had formed around the second Griever. He quickly spotted her.

"What's the Maze sequence?!" She rushed to his side.

"Huh?!" Was his response as he blocked a needled arm coming their way.

"The sections! What's the sequence?"

But he had no time to answer. The monster had charged past the runners with ease and threw itself at them. The knock sent Eleanor to the floor in a painful exhalation, but Minho hadn't been so lucky. The girl let out a desperate scream as she processed the horrifying scene in front of her.

The Griever's sharp teeth were merely inches away from Minho's face as he held his spear across the creature's mouth, as it was the only thing holding it back, with both hands. His muscles strained against the force of the Griever.

Eleanor got up, unsure on how to help without a weapon. The runners had quickly come to their Keeper's aid and started attacking its slimy body.

Eleanor's heartbeats were deafening.

She strode forward as the creature roared and focused its attention at the newcomers. She quickly helped the laying boy up from beneath the Griever, as it had been effectively distracted.

Her eyes quickly scanned his body for serious injuries. Minho exhaled in exhaustion and disbelief. Their eyes locked in a mixture of I can't believe we're still alive and there's no way we're going to survive this.

But it wasn't over yet.

"Minho, the sequence." She remembered.

The boy shook his head. "Right. It's seven, one, five..."

"Hold on." She stopped him and quickly ran to the computer screen, knocking Thomas aside. There was no time for explaining.

7 1 5

She yelled the numbers as she typed them in. "What else?!"

The battle had demanded his attention once more but he shouted back at her.

"Two! Six!" Minho landed a blow of his spike as the Griever threw a runner against the wall with a sickening crunch.

Eleanor typed.

"Four!"

Grunt.

Dodge.

"Eight! Three!"

The girl finished typing the code. For a split of second the seven stars blinked back at her with that eary greenish glow. Then, just like that, the screen turned bright green.

Eleanor exhaled in relief.

In that moment, Eleanor was reminded of the Maze gates as the sound of concrete against concrete sounded from further down the tunnel. Light filtered through the darkness ahead. It seemed a door had opened.

Almost immediately, the Grievers collapsed on the ground, the Gladers jumping back in surprise. The sound of their motors shutting preceded the silence.

The kids looked around in disbelief. Eleanor notted three bodies lay on the ground unmoving, including the runner who had hit the opposite wall.

She could barely feel a thing.

No one said anything for a few seconds.

Chuck was now quietly sobbing. Someone let out a disbelieving laugh coated with hysteria. Eleanor felt short of breath suddenly. The weight of the high death toll crashing down on her.

So many of them hadn't made it. And maybe none of them would, they still weren't safe there.

Eleanor turned to Minho feeling almost entirely out of her body. He stood, his gaze glued to his fallen runner, his face uncharacteristically emotionless.

"We should keep going." She whispered, scared to break the unnaturally quiet athmosphere.

Thomas nodded.

No one made any attempt to move.

Eleanor looked around at the remaining Gladers, each one looking worse than the one before.

She felt if she didn't move soon she would simply just collapse. Finally, Newt took a step forward and she met his gaze. His weapon was still in his hand. It had been snapped in half and rendered useless. He threw it to the side.

"Let's go."

He stridded further into the tunnel with purpose. The Gladers followed, drawned to their leader. Eleanor moved towards Minho, grabbed his hand and dragged him away. He didn't resist her at all in his daze. His weapon, still clutched in his hand, clattering against the ground behind him.

Each step was agonizing for the girl as she followed the rest. Her damp clothes stuck to her skin, still covered in what was then dried Griever's slime and what she guessed was, at an alarming percentage, her own blood.

Her feet carried her forward regardless. She had come too far to stop.

It didn't take long for them to reach the door, or lack-there-of. As she aproached the nearing glimmer of blinking light that had appeared at the end of the cylindrical corridor she saw there was no door anymore. The tunnel ended and a new room simply began.

The light inside this new place was still limited but Eleanor did not seem to need the flashlight that she was still holding onto. She didn't think to turn it off or store it, however.

What she was seeing was far more important that a simple flashlight.

The room they found themselves in was about three times the size of their homestead. Desks and chairs seemed to form a pattern, as if inside an office or a workplace of some kind. Computer screens blinked all around them, lighting the room with an earie blueish glow. Chairs and various objects were scattered across the floor.

Red light blinked from several lightbulbs across the ceiling making Eleanor feel faint. Her vision was becoming blurrier by the second.

The girl suddenly snapped her head to the side as Minho let go of her hand to investigate around the room. She felt fear return to her suddenly, something wasn't right.

Then, she realised.

What had seemed to her like objects laying forgotten on the ground were actually unmoving bodies of people. She stared in horror at what she could then clearly see were puddles of blood surrounding the corpses.

"Look at this." Chuck's voice made her turn to the kid.

He stood infront of a screen, his face coated in disbelief. He hadn't been talking to anyone in particular but she approached him.

The display on the glass could have been a movie if Eleanor hadn't known the place.

It was empty. The homestead stood tall in the middle of the grass, various buildings scattered across the field. Part of the trees could be seen from that angle as well as part of the walls of the Glade. It seemed to be the way the had left it however long before.

Eleanor just stared.

She knew they had been watching, it didn't come as a surprise. It wouldn't have made sense to leave them inside a puzzle with no way of knowing what was going on. But seeing it like that, on a screen, made a wave of nausea rise up and she had to turn away, her head spinning.

Time had seemed to slow down around them. The kids didn't seem to be in imminent danger and their attention had been completely captured by the possibility of real answers that for the first time could lay within that room.

Across from her, something caught her eye. It was a girl's face, unsmiling, staring back at her. Eleanor blinked, then noticed it was a picture.

She approached on instinct. Something felt familiar about that girl's eyes.

On the glowing screen, next to it, Teresa's face stared back as well and; on its right, Thomas'. And, as she raised her fingers, she realised.

It was her own face she was seeing.

An unkown feeling crept up through her as she analysed the new found, yet familiar, features. Eleanor had to grab the desk for support. The flashlight clattered against the word.

Her eyes were grey.

That detail alone overwhelmed her.

How had she not know? All that time... How had she forgotten her own appearance?

Even then, knowing it was so, she couldn't asociate that face to herself.

She didn't feel like that girl at all.

She knew her own hair wasn't as short and well kept. It had grown to reach her ribs in a fuzzy mane, covered in sticky substances at the moment. Her skin wasn't pale or smooth, it was coated with freckles and much tanner; very dirty, probably, and splattered with blood.

No. She wasn't that girl.

Eleanor felt more exhausted then than she had ever felt before, suddenly very thankful she was holding onto a table. She forced her eyes away from those grey vacant ones.

Subject A3. She read on the corner. The sacrifice.

Age: 17.

She searched for more. There wasn't.

That's what she was. A number. She couldn't stand anymore. She turned her back to the screen and leaned into the desk, letting her weight rest there. The room swayed around her.

The sacrifice. What did that mean? Had she been meant to die? But they had gotten out, she had made it. And that room wasn't part of the Maze. It wasn't part of the game. Was it?

Did that mean she would not survive after all-

"Hello. My name is Doctor Ava Paige."

Eleanor jumped to her feet. Alert. She held the flashlight tightly, as if it was her lifeline.

A big screen was illuminating the room. The Gladers had turned. Thomas held his hands up. He had touched something that played a video.

"I'm Director of Operations of the World Catastrophe Killzone Department." A blonde much older woman in all white spoke directly to them. "If you're watching this, that means you have successfully completed the Maze Trials. I wish I could be there in person to congratulate you... but circumstances seem to have prevented it."

The woman seemed to be in that very same room. People in lab coats and white uniforms worked behing her.

Eleanor felt cold. This woman felt familiar but the feeling of uneasiness didn't subside. She instinctively moved forward to the screen. Newt was closer to her, she approached him.

"I'm sure by now, you must all be very confused... angry, frightened." Someone scoffed. "I can only assure you, that everything that's happened to you. Everything we've done to you, it was all done for a reason."

Eleanor held her breath. Answers.

At last.

"You won't remember... but the Sun has scorched our world. Billions of lives lost to fire... famine... Suffering on a global scale. The fallout was unimaginable. What came after was worse. We called it the Flare."

Eleanor tried to make sense of what the woman was saying.

"A deadly virus that attacks the brain. It is violent, unpredictable, incurable. Or so we thought."

Everyone was silent. Drinking in all that new information. Eleanor felt she could only listen, her brain barely processing the words.

"In time, a new generation emerged that could survive the virus. Suddenly, there was a reason to hope for a cure. But finding it would not be easy. The young would have to be tested, even sacrificed..."

Eleanor was finding it hard to breathe. Her eyes subconciously moved to Minho. He was frowning at the screen.

"...inside harsh environments where their brain activity could be studied. All in an effort to understand what makes them different. What makes you different."

Her eyes moved back to the screen.

"You may not realize it... but you're very important."

So it was a test, after all, just one they had had no chance of passing. She observed new figures wearing all black invading the screen. The new movement demanded her attention.

"Unfortunately, your trials have only just begun. As you will no doubt soon discover, not everyone agrees with our methods. Progress is slow, people are scared."

Nervs were picking back up. The Gladers looked at one another in confusion. The first shot made Eleanor jump. She blinked, her eyelids heavy. More gunshots followed as the scientists fell to the floor in the background.

"It may be too late for us, for me. But not for you."

The woman seemed unfaced with what was happening behind her.

"The outside world awaits." She spoke directly to them. "Remember..."

Her hand moved upwards holding a small black gun. Eleanor swallowed. She put it to her temple.

"Wicked is good."

The gunshot sounded louder. Eleanor didn't even take her eyes of the screen. Nothing felt real anymore.

They had been an experiment.

Was it all for nothing? Those people were now dead around that same floor she was standing on.

But she had said it had only just begun.

How was that possible? They were out. Those people were dead...

"Is it over?"

Someone spoke. She didn't turn.

"She said we were important." That voice was closer.

"What are we supposed to do now?"

She forced herself out of her reverie.

They had all turned to Thomas, expecting him to have an answer.

"I don't know." He admitted. He seemed to think it over. "Let's get out of here."

Teresa nodded beside him. Chuck turned just as Thomas did, looking for a way out. They all moved.

Eleanor couldn't. She felt sick. The lights danced around her sight. She didn't think she could go on. She didn't feel it but the light vanished as the flashlight fell to the ground and rolled away.

A touch on her shoulder.

Newt's voice. "Hey, are you ok?"

She swayed. Then, his arms were around her own, supporting her weight.

"Oh." He exclaimed, surprised.

She could only blink. Minho was on her side in a second.

"What is it? Is she hurt?"

She fought against the fog invading her mind.

"I'm alright." She tried to say to the two pair of concerned eyes.

She planted her feet more firmly on the ground. She had to go on. She couldn't stop, not when they were so close. But as she regained her footing and the boys gave her space to do so, Newt releasing his hold, something caught her eye.

Through the opening of the tunnel a figure had emerged in long strides and with purpose. Eleanor felt immediately awake as her eyes widened. She felt Minho and Newt turn to look at whatever had surprised her. The boy grabbed something from the ground.

"Stop!"

Everyone else turned to the sound and halted. He was holding a gun, his eyes filled with tears. His gaze locked with hers and she saw the desperation clearly written on Gally's face.