Chapter 28
The first thing I did when I woke up the next day was shower. After being stuck in a room filled with dirt, dust and smoke I thought it was much needed so at the crack of dawn (or as close to it as I could guess with the sky still being grey) I was up and out of the homestead so I could begin my trek to the shower cabin.
As I walked through the Glade and Deadheads, I took in every damaged area that surrounded me. Trees were on fire, buildings were splintered, the gardens were destroyed and the livestock was slaughtered across the grass.
Before getting into the shower I decided to try and put out as much of the slowly burning fires as I could. It wasn't easy and involved me climbing up multiple trees with two large buckets of water at my sides, but I managed.
By the time I got into the shower, I stunk more than I had before I woke up so took as much time as I wanted getting clean and dry and dressed. My outfit for the day was a pair of black stretchy jeans, a dark green long sleeved t-shirt and a pair of tatty black high tops.
After securing my hair in a tight pony tail and finishing off putting out the remains of any fires, I started waking the graders up for work. I wasn't as harsh as I was to my close friends the first night after the grievers made an appearance in the Glade but I definitely wasn't the sweet, nurturing voice any of them would have wanted to hear at stupid o'clock in the morning.
I got everyone up and working quickly and Frypan did a good job at rationing all of the food out between everyone. While I was waking everyone up, I opened a door to one room where the runners where all snoring loudly and I let them be considering they had been out in the maze for over twenty-four hours.
I was working in the gardens that day, helping the Track-hoes saving the remainders of food that hadn't been scorched and later on, when the runners started waking up, I was greeted by Minho and Thomas.
They told me and Newt about the opening they had found at the cliff and the theory Thomas had for it which I wasn't much of a fan of. I mean, who would want to hear that there was a possibility the maze was unsolvable and the exit could be through a hole where grievers could be staying and there entrance into the maze could be our exit?
As soon as they told us their theory, we gathered a few other gladers we knew we could trust and headed to the map room where we all started making piles of the maps depending on the sector. Thomas gave us a list of things that we needed in order to check his theory so while he stayed behind in the maps room, I ran around with Teresa gathering pens and ambushing Frypan in the kitchen for his greaseproof paper.
Once we had the necessary equipment we all grabbed a stack of maps and followed Thomas' lead on what to do with them after he demonstrated and proved his theory could work. The first letter was 'F' and even despite it being clear that Thomas' theory could work, Minho had his doubts so Thomas tried another map and it had the letter 'O'.
I was one of the first to start working on my pile of maps after Thomas' demonstration while the others just sat in silence, lost to their own thoughts.
After about an hour we had found two words, 'FLOAT' and 'CAT'. Minho was quick to point out that the two words didn't make any sense but Thomas urged us to continue. We found that the full word was actually 'CATCH' and another was 'BLEED' but by the time we tried starting another pile of maps, the gladers where already packing up and running around to prepare for the oncoming Griever attack of the night.
We packed up all of the maps and put them back in the chests for the night and before I knew it, we were running towards the homestead as people made last minute adjustments to the building. We all retreated to Newt's room and sat on the floor in the centre of the room in silence. Chuck was already waiting for us when we got there and because he didn't know about our discovery about the maps (since Thomas didn't want to give him false hope if it didn't work out) we couldn't talk about it in front of him.
Alby walked into the room later on, seconds before the Grievers would enter the Glade but didn't say anything about why he was late. Newt tried to push answers out of him but Alby snapped at him so nobody mentioned it again.
The soul shaking scream of the Grievers had us all huddled together in fear, all of us praying we would survive another night and nobody close to us would die.
It took the beasts more time and effort getting into the building that night but another life was lost and nobody could do anything about it. The screams of the unlucky boy haunted every gladers nightmares that night. He had pleaded and fought to remain in the building, everyone in the homestead could hear him begging to be saved by the gladers in the room but despite their best efforts, he could not be saved.
Teresa was extremely shaken up after hearing the final screams of the boy as he was pulled through a wall and attacked with needles and spikes. She sobbed into Thomas' chest for over half an hour and I couldn't blame her. His screams had been pain filled and terrified. They were sure to haunt me to the end of my life and I could imagine it being the same for every other Glader.
Sleep didn't find me until four hours after the Grievers left the Glade which was three hours after everyone else. I sat up awake with the boys screams running over and over again in my head. Anger surged through me at the creators. None of us deserved to go through the hell we had experienced.
I got two hours of sleep that night and was the first awake in the morning. I showered, dressed and by the time I had finished some of the other Gladers were up and walking about, getting prepared for another day of hopeless working towards the homesteads reinforcements.
In my sleep deprived state, I didn't notice the smoke dwindling up towards the sky from the direction of the maps room but some other gladers did. Shouts and yells erupted at once, each more panicked as the next.
At first I was confused as to what the ruckus was about but when it registered in my head what had happened, I acted impulsively and flung myself into the burning building.
I didn't pay attention to the people panicking outside or the slumped over, unconscious body directly in front of the doorway. I just focused on the flames around me.
With the ash clogging my lungs and eyes stinging from the smoke, I could barely make out the scattered pieces of paper that littered the floor.
I turned in circles to see every chest of maps upturned and emptied onto the floor in an unrecognisable mess. It didn't take a genius to realise this was not the work of Grievers, for they would not have been able to cause this type of destruction.
The lack of oxygen became a problem quickly so I had to stumble out of the building and gasp for air while holding onto a tree for support. Peoples shouting and confusion didn't help me much but somehow I caught my breath and got everyone's attention, just not in the way they were used to.
I climbed up the tree I was holding onto and screamed from the top of my lungs until my throat ached and everyone had shut up.
"Thank you." I muttered once I had everyone's attention on me and jumped onto a lower branch.
"This was not the aftermath of the Grievers that so generously decided to pay another visit to us last night. Every map in that building has been destroyed. All chests are upturned and the building is burning from the inside out. This was the doings of a Glader. Somebody among us has caused this. There is a traitor in the Glade!" I spoke loud and clear for my voice to carry over the crackling of the fames which seemed to be dying down with the water being thrown on it by the sloppers.
"If anyone had any idea who caused this they are to report to Alby or Newt. Am I clear?"
The gladers nodded their heads and mumbled 'yes's but other than that there was no noise. After a few seconds and a firm nod, I jumped from my branch and onto the floor before walking towards the building again to the slumped over figure sitting in front of the door who I had overlooked completely only minutes ago.
Clint and Jeff where already crouched down in front of the glader so I couldn't see their face immediately but when I did, I gasped and stumbled back slightly.
"Alby?" I whispered and crouched down next to him to examine the gash on his head.
"What happened?" I asked him as I was handed a cloth to wipe away the blood running down his face.
"I don't remember." Was his simple reply as his eyes fluttered closed. I quickly slapped him across the face and his eyes snapped open, I met his glaring brown eyes with my curious blue ones.
"What?" he snapped
"Don't you dare close your eyes on me mister! If you so much as thinking of heading towards the light I will break your arm and you will be forced to stay awake with the pain, do you hear me!?" I said/shouted in his face.
"Damn soldier I just wanted to shut my eyes for a second while I try to remember what happened last night." in that 'know it all' voice I hate which makes me feel like a five year old.
I huffed and finished patching up his head before walking away towards Newt, Minho and Thomas who were conversing between them not too far away.
"What's wrong?" I asked. A stupid question really considering everything that had been happening.
"We need to find more codes but the runners need to get back in the maze." Newt said
"How are we gonna find codes if the maps have been burnt?" I asked
"We switched the maps for fake ones. We've still got all the right maps." Thomas said
"Oh, well let the runners back in the maze and we can just work faster on the codes today and I'll do two piles of maps." I said
Everyone agreed so Minho and Thomas ran off to get the runners back in the maze so it was just me and Newt.
"Come on then Newtie, we've got work to do!" I said with fake enthusiasm as I made him lead me towards the maps. They were hidden in the weapons room, the sneaky slintheads.
We got to work immediately, I continued with my own pile from the day before and managed to finish it and half of Thomas' pile straight after lunch. Newt also got Teresa and Clint to help us with the maps as well since he thought Clint could be trusted.
We realised the maps were repeating themselves with the letters and words fairly quickly but Newt pushed us to continue going through them until we finished so we wouldn't miss anything and when we had sorted through every last piece of paper, we finally had a total of six words.
FLOAT
CATCH
BLEED
DEATH
STIFF
PUSH
The words where unsettling to say the least, especially BLOOD and DEATH, but I tried to overlook what the words actually meant as much as possible as we thought of how they would help us.
I was later needed in the homestead as well as Clint for our Med-jack duties which manly revolved around Alby and the state he was in. Apparently he did actually pass out after I left so they had to drag him to the homestead which resulted in a few more bruises than he had before, curtesy of the idiots who dropped him on the floor while carrying him.
I walked into his room where he was sitting up in the hospice bed with his head in his hands and his knees drawn close to his chest while sobs shook his body.
Clint, Jeff and the other Med-jacks didn't come into the room with me, knowing Alby wouldn't answer any of their questions but reacted better to me. I was cautious as I walked towards him, not knowing if he would lash out at me or not but after watching him for a couple of minutes and realising he appeared to be in a less than likely threatening state, I didn't bother with caution and sat on his bed.
"How you feeling Alby?" I asked softly but he barely seemed to react to my voice although his sobs got louder.
"Its all my fault." he whispered with a hoarse because of all of the crying he seemed to be doing.
"What happened?" I asked, putting a hand on his shoulder to coax him to look up at me and I was met with a pair of puffy brown eyes, full of unshed tears that threatened to spill and join the already escaped tears that were running down his face.
"I set t-the maps on fire. I-its my fault." he whispered as he stared into my eyes.
"Why?" I asked, trying hard to keep my tone soft
"We can't escape. We belong to the maze." He said
I only nodded then before standing up and checking the bandages around his head and changing them when I noticed the blood had soaked them.
"Did you do this to yourself?" I asked him and he just nodded his head slightly
I sighed and told him to get some rest before I left the room. Instead of going back to the maps room, I ran to the deadheads and jumped into the nearest tree before sitting with my back against the trunk and my legs dangling down as I thought about the words we had found and the fire Alby had started.
