The Labyrinth: Chapter Fifteen
For the second time that day, we were all shocked.
"Well, come on," Newt said to Thomas as he grabbed his arm. "No way am I not going with ya."
Minho and I both watched as Newt and Thomas left the room, with Chuck trotting right behind them like a little puppy that needed attention all the time. The last thing Newt said as he left was to Minho to get started to work. Whatever that meant. I wanted to go back to bed and sleep a thousand sleeps.
"So…" Minho said breaking the awkward silence "Feeling better?"
"Still think I'm a spy?" I countered. Let's make it really awkward.
Minho nervously laughed, rubbing the back of his neck in the process. "Yeah, that sounds crazy now. Doesn't mean I still think there's something more to you."
"Erm … thanks," I said. Was he complementing me or insulting me, again?
"We better get going otherwise Newt won't be impressed and I don't need that right now." Minho helped me from the chair and handed me the crutches.
I thought getting to this place was slow. I stood corrected. At one point, something must have snapped in Minho's head for he stomped the ground, grabbed the crutches and hoisted me up in the air. I flinched from the reaction, not expecting to be flung in the air and into his arms.
"Look," Minho huffed. "I would say sorry but I haven't got all day to waste."
His stride picked up the moment I was in his arms. We crossed the Glade in double time until we came to the building that all the Runners entered at the end of the day. He gently put my two feet back on the ground, shoved the crutches into my chest and heaved open the Map Room door. He cranked the wheel-handle of the door, spinning it until there was a muffled click from inside, then pulled. With a lurch and a squeal, the heavy door swung open.
"Come on then," Minho said, beckoning me with a hand. I heaved my body towards the open doorway, my good leg leading the way. I passed Minho without a word, my eyes too focused on what lay behind the mysterious door.
The dark room had a musk, wet smell, laced with a deep coppery scent so strong I could taste it on the tip of my tongue. A faded memory surfaced, the taste of copper pennies stinging my taste buds, the disgusting flavour being a poor choice to shove in a mouth.
Minho hit a switch from somewhere near the door, and several rows of fluorescent lights flickered until they came on in full strength, revealing the room in all of its detail.
In itself, the room was very simple. Not what I expected for the hideout of the Runners to look like.
"Welcome to the Map Room," Minho said, taking a position on my left. "The most happiest place to find yourself in the Glade."
Glancing back to the room, I saw that it was about twenty feet across with the concrete walls bare of any decoration. A wooden table sat in the exact centre of the room, eight chairs tucked neatly in around it. There were stacks and stacks of paper and pencils laid carefully about the table's surface, one for each chair. The only other items in the room were eight trunks, all evenly spaced out across the room, two to a wall, all closed.
It wasn't what I was expecting in the slightest – something more profound was higher in the list – yet, they still had somewhere to work.
I took a deep breath in. "And the smelliest."
"Hey," Minho said. "I kinda like it."
I shrugged in response.
Eyeing one of the chairs, I limped my way over, pulling it out from under the table as best as I could. Once it was so far out, I plopped myself on and lent the crutches on the side of the table. I made sure that I was careful enough not to knock any of the paper or pens from their respective places.
"So," I started, turning to face Minho. "What exactly is it that I need to know about the Maps?"
By this point, he had joined me at the table and had taken his own seat, opposite from where I sat. He placed his hands on top of the surface carefully, letting them intertwine with one another.
"I'm gonna give you a whistle-stop-tour of the place, but I won't teach ya everythin' now cause we don't have enough time to do it." Minho got up from his chair and crossed the room to one of the chests. He heaved it open, revealing more paper that was neatly stacked inside. "This is where we chart the Maze. All the twists and turns. All the paths. All the corridors. Everythin' is recorded on a piece of paper in this room."
He placed a hand into the chest, searching for something of relevance to what he was saying.
"Now," he continued. "I'm gonna show you a few things, just to get your head round it all. The ins and outs of this place – rules, if you want to be more specific."
Minho pulled out a thin piece of paper before he turned and shuffled over to the neighbouring chest. That too he opened and pulled another piece of paper out. This went on until he had opened all the chests around the room and pulled at least one sheet of paper from them.
Finally, after he had made his whole way round the room, Minho settled back into his chair opposite the table. I watched as he spread the sheets of paper out in front of him in order, then went to grab a fresh sheet with a pen.
"These are the maps of the Maze. As I said before, all the turns, paths and gaps you would find out there." He grabbed the plain piece of paper and started to draw. I leaned in closer to get a better look, watching him draw a large box that almost filled the entire page. Then he filled it with smaller boxes until it looked like a noughts and crosses board, three rows of three squares, all the same size. He wrote the word GLADE in the middle, then numbered the outside squares one to eight, starting in the upper left-hand corner going clockwise. Lastly, he drew little notches here and there.
"These are the Doors," Minho said. "You know about the ones from the Glade, but there are four more out in the Maze that lead to Sections One, Three, Five and Seven. Did you encounter any of those in your night?"
I looked up from studying the drawn map from afar and shook my head. "I'm not sure, it was dark out there."
"It doesn't matter anyway." Minho slid the paper over so that it rested in front of me. I picked it up, fascinated with seeing the Maze structured in such a way.
"That's only a rough drawing of what the Maze looks like, it'll be explained more later." Minho then gestured towards the eight pieces of paper in front of him. "Here are the different Sections that I mentioned. There are eight in total, all of which are mapped and recorded into their corresponding chests."
Minho slid one over to me. I took it and studied the page intently. A rough sketch of a square maze filled the whole page, with notes scribbled in the top right corners of it: Section 8, followed by the name Hank, then the word Day, followed by a number – 749.
"What does the word mean?" I asked, pointing to the word Day that had been written on the page.
"Haven't got a clue."
"And the number, 749, what does that mean?"
"The day number."
I hadn't expected the Gladers to know exactly how long they had been here. The phrase 'two years' had been tossed around the Glade as a matter of insult for some of the older ones, but I had only thought that it was an estimate. To actually know how long they had been stuck here, it made the situation a little more daunting. And to think of it, I'd been there almost two weeks, nothing compared to what they had been through.
"Day number," I repeated in a low voice. "But, I don't quite understand what I'm supposed to be doing with these maps."
"It's simple, really," Minho said, grasping the Section 8 map from my hands. "As we the Runners spend all day in the Maze runnin' the damn thin', you're gonna be here to do what we have little time to do."
"And what is that exactly?" I inquired, edging forward on my seat.
"You're gonna help us find a way out."
"A way out." I frowned in confusion, my brows wrinkling together. "But, you would have found one by now without my help."
Minho rolled his eyes and stood up from the table, eight pieces of paper in his hands. Whilst he circled back round the room to the chests, placing the sheets of paper neatly back onto the piles, he answered my concerns. "Yes, we would have found one. But, we can't find one. The problem is that we spend the day runnin' the paths, and less time tryin' to find a solution. That's why you're here."
"I still don't see the point in why I should be doing this," I retorted.
"Clarke, let me finish." Minho closed the lid of the last chest with a mighty thud. "By runnin' the Maze the whole day, we don't have enough time to look through the maps carefully. You have the time, so you can look through them properly for any hints."
Minho's words rung through the air. All hope was now placed on to my shoulders, and they expected results. Good ones. I glimpsed down at the hastily drawn map Minho had given me when he explained the Maze. Such a simple task had impossibility scrawled all over it.
"You okay?" Minho queried, concern written into his words.
"Fine," I insisted as best I could. How could I tell him I couldn't do this? I glanced up to where he stood and gave the best convincing smile that I had. It seemed to work, because he dismissed the words and went back to cleaning up.
A minute passed before either of us spoke again.
"Hungry?" Minho finally said, breaking the silence that circled through the dingy room.
"Tiny bit," I responded.
Minho grinned. "Good, cause I am. Let's go look for some leftovers from lunch."
I grabbed my crutches, that were still magically balanced on the side of the table, slipped them under my arms and followed (as best I could) out of the Map Room. Once outside, he closed the heavy metal door, pushing it into place, then cranking the wheel-handle until it was tightly shut.
"Why must the door be locked?" I observed, curious for the reason for so much secrecy in this place.
"To keep all of it safe."
I, for one, was not satisfied with that answer. Yet, to stay on his good side, I chose to ignore the burning question that bit away at my mind – keep them safe from who?
Minho and I emerged from the tree line and headed straight over to the Kitchens, our stomachs rumbling from the nonsense of the past few hours. When we had appeared from the trees, I insisted to make my own way to the destination, without the need to be carried everywhere.
Once we finally arrived at the Kitchens, we were greeted with a scene of Newt and Thomas both haggling Frypan, also, for leftover food. The cook looked displeased in giving out more than he already had, complaining that they missed lunch and had to wait until dinner.
"Not two more," Frypan whined as he saw Minho and I strolled (one strolled) into the Kitchen, hungry looks sparkling in our eyes.
"Come off it, Frypan," Minho retorted. "Need not be too much."
"There are times for a reason," Frypan complained. Yet, despite his grumbles, eventually we were able to gain a few cheese sandwiches and a handful of raw vegetables that were going to be used for dinner later that night.
"Give me Clarke's," Minho piped up from beside me, his hands full of his own food. "As much as I would like to see her attempt it, I don't want to be punched by her."
I scoffed at this remark.
"Clarke, I do believe that is very unladylike," Minho mocked as he placed food on top of his.
"And how would you know what ladylike is?" I shot back.
He ignored me and instead turned his back to follow Newt and Thomas back out into the Glade. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Frypan shooting a hard stare as we left. A stare that questioned what had you done to upset them. I couldn't think of anything. I barely spoke to people. The only reason that the Gladers ever stared at me was because … well … I was a girl. The cook kept eyeing Thomas as well, giving him strange looks whenever his gaze fell upon him. Thomas started to notice it as well, as Frypan's eyes would dart away whenever the stare returned.
Strange boy.
The eyes turned to me, a sense of perplexed confusion drifting in them. He coaxed his head to the side, his eyes flickering for a moment before he shook his head and glanced up once more. I left in quite a hurry after that, giving Frypan a faint 'thank you' as I limped through the doorway. Outside, I stopped for a second, letting the cook's odd behaviour be locked into the back of my mind to be forgotten about.
"In there quite a while, we thought you got lost or somethin'," Newt joked. His expression hardened when I didn't find whatever he said funny (it wasn't). A frown smudged out the creases of a smile. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," I returned, biting back the urge to tell him what I saw. "Just hungry I guess."
I glanced up to look him in the eye, giving a small smile that I hoped would satisfy his worry. Newt already enough to worry about in this place. He didn't need to know about my troubles with how people stared at me. That was something I had to deal with.
"You know you can tell me anythin'?" he softly whispered, the words picked carefully, as if he knew that everything was not all right. Not by a long shot.
I nodded instead of answering. Words would give me away. Actions would not.
Breaking eye contact, I hobbled over to where Minho and Thomas were sitting, their backs to the West Wall watching the Gladers work throughout the Glade. It didn't look far when I first started, but by the time I arrived, I was very much out of breath and in a lot of pain.
Up until now, I had been ignoring the festering burning in my leg and hand. By the time I eventually came to sit down next to Thomas (Newt joining me on my side), I was shaking all over like I had run the Maze four times over. Minho passed my food to me and I forced myself to eat. The way things were going, I needed the strength to deal with surviving in this place.
"Any success with Alby?" Minho asked between bites of his sandwich.
"Some," Newt responded, his voice telling a different story. "But it was eventful."
Thomas shuddered beside me, a few crumbs falling from the bread of his sandwich.
"Was it really that bad?" I added.
There was silence for a brief moment before Thomas finally filled in the gaps for us. He explained the whole ordeal that happened with Alby, mentioning everything in minute detail.
"We went in and he was lying there on the bed, asleep. Newt woke him up. He seemed fine at first, then started to declare that 'everything was gonna change' and that he saw us–"
"Who?" Minho interrupted.
Thomas eyed him carefully before he continued. "Me and the kid in the coma." He paused. "Then he went all looney, demanding that Newt leave the room and that he only wanted to talk to me."
Thomas paused again.
"Go on then, what else?" I pushed, the curiosity to know more nibbling away at me.
"He said he knew who I was and that he had seen everything. Mentioned something called the Flare and said he remembered it. After he mentioned it, he seemed to lose control and started to strangle himself with his own hands. I called Newt in to help me stop him from killing himself. Newt managed to pull Alby's hands from his throat and secure them on his chest, while I clamped down his legs. He jerked for bit, after we had stopped him from struggling, then he just calmed down until his breathing evened out."
"It was strange," Newt added. "He claimed it wasn't him doing it, but somethin' else controllin' his body. Kept insistin' that it wasn't him. We helped him back onto the bed properly, gettin' him comfortable to sleep, by then he had stopped saying he was being controlled and started to mutter something else."
Minho placed his sandwich back down on his plate. "Wait hold that thought. You said that Clarke. You said you felt like someone else controlled you."
I frowned at him. "I don't remember saying being controlled."
"But you did say you couldn't control yourself, like there was a force fighting against you," Minho insisted.
"I guess," I said unsure of the point he was making. "What's this gotta do with anything?"
"Don't you see." Confused gazes greeted Minho. "There is truth in what you said. Maybe Alby was being controlled by the same thing that controlled Clarke into the Maze."
Newt rolled his eyes at him. "Minho have you been on Frypan's saucy-sauce? That sounds crazy." There was another pause. Newt and Thomas both eyed each other a daunting look before Newt continued with the story. "But the point I was making was what Alby said. 'Be careful round the boy and protect the maps'."
"Have you ever seen something like it before?" I said after a minute of silence. Newt looked at me, his face sombre.
"No. Never. But then again, no one's ever tried to tell us what they remembered during the Changin'. They always refuse. Alby tried to – must be why he went nuts for a while."
I reconsidered Minho's theory. Maybe, just maybe, he was right. It would make some sense.
You're sounding mad now. People can't be controlled.
"We have to find Gally," Minho said through a bite of a carrot.
"Dude, have you been listening to what we've been saying?" Newt said in disbelief.
"Yeah, but the shank has taken off somewhere and not been found. We need to find him and throw his butt in jail." Minho insisted as he took the last bites of his carrot.
"Serious?" Thomas said to eagerly.
"That shank threatened to kill you and we have to make bloody sure it never happens again. That shuckface is gonna pay a heavy price for actin' like that – he's lucky we don't Banish him."
"Yeah." Thomas said.
"Good that," Minho replied. He suddenly got up from sitting on the ground and mumbled something about trying to hunt a chicken down. I watched as he crossed the Glade and went to go on with whatever business he had.
"Here's how it'll play out," Newt said. "Both are with me the rest of today – we need to figure things. Tomorrow, the Slammer." I groaned. "Then Tommy, you're Minho's, while Clarke has map duty. And I also want you Thomas to stay away from the other shanks for a while. Got it?"
Thomas seemed more than happy to oblige. "Sounds beautiful. So Minho's going to train me?"
"That's right – you're a Runner now. Minho'll teach ya. The Maze, the Maps, everything. Lots to learn. I expect you to work your butt off."
The boys went quite after that as we finished our lunches. I glanced sideways to see the clogs ticking away inside Thomas's head as he tried to deceiver what exactly he be doing. We all were. So much new information had been fired upon us today, and it all circulated around Thomas, the coma-boy and mine's head. The Gladers knew that something wasn't right, and somehow, we were all connected by that.
Newt crumpled his rubbish into a tight ball and turned to look at the kid straight in the eye.
"Thomas," he began, "I need you to accept somethin'. We've heard it too many times now to deny it, and it's time to discuss it."
I knew the very words that were going to slip from his mouth. We all knew.
"Gally said it. Alby said it. Ben said it," Newt continued, "the boy, after he was taken out of the Box, he said it."
He paused, expecting Thomas to ask what he meant.
"They all said things were going to change. And they did. Clarke here turned up." Newt looked away for a moment, then turned back. "That's right. Gally and Ben have both claimed to have seen you in their memories, and now Alby is saying he seen you – and from what I gather, it ain't all good. According to Gally, there's somethin' rotten about ya. The kid wouldn't have just said bad if he didn't know what he was talkin' about."
"Clarke as well," Thomas added.
Newt immediately faced me. "What?"
"No." I pointed at Newt. "No." I pointed at Thomas. "We established they were dreams."
"I don't think so," Thomas interjected. "I saw what happened in the Maze. I don't think you're having dreams. I think your memoires are seeping back in. I heard what you said before you woke up. That didn't sound like a dream. And your face–."
"They are dreams," I cut in before Newt could even get a word in edge-ways. "Nothing more, nothing less. I can't be having memories cause I haven't been stung. I know that."
"This is not the end of this."
"Yes, it is," I snapped at Newt. "No more on the matter."
There was a pause of silence.
"So how do we do this? How do we find out about ourselves?" Thomas asked Newt.
"I need you to open your mind. Be honest if anything – anything at all – seems familiar."
"Nothing–"
"I know you don't remember anything, Thomas! Quit sayin' that – don't ever say it again. None of us remember anything, and we're bloody sick of you reminding us."
"Fine," Thomas spat at him. "What is your suggestion then?"
"Just think."
We waited for a moment.
"I can see your wheels spinnin'," Newt said quietly, saying exactly what I thought. "Talk."
Thomas hesitated, then opened his mouth, letting the words spill out from him. "Well … I can't put my finger on anything specific." He spoke slowly, carefully. "But I did feel like I'd been here before when I first got here." He looked at Newt, hoping to see some sort of recognition in his eyes. "Anyone else go through that?"
But Newt's face was blank. He simply rolled his eyes. "Uh, no, Tommy. Most of us spent a week klunkin' our pants and bawlin' our eyes out. Or just refuse to talk to anyone." The last comment clearly aimed at me.
"But, was there any strange behaviour?" Thomas persisted, now fully interested in my arrival.
Newt and I glanced between us. "Nothing that comes to mind," I answered. Apart from the Maze, everything seemed … normal.
"Fine, well." He paused. "It all seemed familiar to me, and I knew I wanted to be a Runner."
"That's interesting." Newt examined him for a second, not hiding his obvious suspicion. "Well, keep lookin' for it. Strain your mind, spend your free time wanderin' your thoughts, and think about this place. Delve inside that brain of yours, and seek it out. Try, for all our sakes."
"I will." Thomas closed his eyes.
"Not now, you dumb shuck." Newt laughed. "I just meant do it from now on. Free time, meals, goin' to sleep at night, as you walk around, train, work. Tell me anything that seems even remotely familiar. Got it?"
"Yeah, got it." Thomas repeated, a sense of worry in his voice.
"Good that," Newt said, looking almost too agreeable. "To begin, we better go see someone."
"Who?" I asked.
"The boy that won't wake. I want both of ya to look at him till your eyes bleed, see if somethin' gets trigged in them brains of yours." Newt released my hand after helping me from the floor. Gathered his lunch rubbish and mine, and stood up. He extended an empty hand my way and gently helped me to my feet. Thomas passed up the crutches, which laid beside him, and I slipped them under my arms. He then stood and we all walked (limped) back towards the Homestead, where the boy still laid in a coma.
"If all else fails," Newt said, "we'll send ya to the Grievers – get ya stung so you can go through the Changing. We need your memories." Thomas barked a sarcastic laugh at the idea, but Newt wasn't smiling.
