In which things go wrong...well...wronger.

And keep an eye out if there's any scenes you want from other perspectives as we go :)

Notes and teaser at the end.

Nearly two full weeks go by without much excitement, unless you count the daily hijinks.

The next Box Day is just around the corner.

We should have known it was too good to last.

The sky gets dark early one day – not by much, but enough that we pack up before usual. Clouds roll in overhead, but it doesn't rain.

The Runners make it back.

Minho and Ben look none the worse for wear, but Doug and Justin – despite my not knowing them well – look plainly exhausted.

I've been sitting outside the Kitchen with Jeff, Winston and Newt when the group jog past us, and it's easy to see the way Newt's brow furrows with concern.

"Go," I tell him, taking his pile of twigs. "I've got this."

I take over the task of putting the kindling into the fire pit, ready for lighting.

He touches the back of my neck very lightly as he stands. "Thanks. I'll be back."

He jogs after the Runners, stride a little uneven thanks to the limp.

"What's that about?" Winston asks, nodding to Newt's retreating back.

I shrug.

"Doug and Justin don't look right," I say. "I haven't seen Alby today, so Newt's gone to check it out.

"Oh," Winston says. He hesitates before returning to the fire he's trying to start with two pieces of flint.

I get the strange feeling that I've answered a different question to the one he asked.

…

Newt returns in less than fifteen minutes. He looks preoccupied and concerned.

"Are they okay?" I ask.

Newt glances at Jeff and Winston, who are chatting away nearby.

He sighs as he drops down next to me, wrists resting on his knees. "Doug and Justin got split up," he says, in a low tone. "A wall moved too quickly, and Doug seems to think it shouldn't have. They had to find another path to meet up, so they're tired and a little shaken, I think. Justin's exhausted; didn't even say anything. He's in his hammock already."

"Well…it could have been worse, right?" I ask. I'm not sure if I believe it, though. Something just seems…off.

In less than twenty-four hours, I know what that is.

…

I'm making my way through the Deadheads the next morning with a sling that I've been filling with strips of bark to use in a remedy.

The cracking of twigs behind me surprises me and I spin around.

I recognise Justin, but he looks worse than Ben did when he caught the cold.

He's white as a sheet; his eyes bloodshot and his breathing harsh. The part of me that's learned to work with Clint and Jeff wants to check him over and help.

But a bigger part of me screams danger.

A cold feeling rushes down my spine.

The chill seeps through my blood.

This is not safe.

Don't get any closer.

"Justin?" I ask, tentatively instead. "Hey, are you okay?"

He clearly isn't but I don't know what else to ask.

His breath hisses through clenched teeth. The sound rattles.

"Wrong," he says. His voice is scratchy, like something is clawing at his throat. "They mixed you up."

What?

"Sent to test us!"

He stumbles towards me.

I back up a step. My heart is suddenly thundering, adrenaline making my sight sharp.

His eyes are wild. There's no true recognition there.

The veins in his neck stand out darkly; pulsing.

Sting.

I remember the vague accounts from Jeff about it. Only a couple of people have been stung before. There is no happy ending.

All I know is the people stung seem to lose all grasp of reality and go mad. It makes veins pop out and pulse black. It makes the victims aggressive and unpredictable.

For some reason my mind jumps back to the afternoon I was sat with Tim, hanging clean clothes. I remember the sharp snap of the elastic lines. I don't know why.

"Justin!" I say, even knowing it's futile.

"Adam and Eve!" He shouts. "They swapped you!"

And he lunges at me.

I throw the sling of bark into his face, dive around a tree and sprint for Homestead.

Justin may be a Runner, but he's not exactly in top condition. I'm faster today. But only just.

For someone who looks like they're on Death's door, he can chase me very well. His rattling, seething breaths are loud at my back.

I burst out of the trees by the Kitchen.

Stan looks up from where he's been setting clean pans down outside.

The smile melts straight off his face as he sees Justin come flying after me.

"Fry!" He yells, running back inside.

I don't stop.

Justin seems fixated on me, but I don't know if he'll turn on anyone else, and I don't know if this sting is contagious. As long as he's on my tail, he's not after anyone else.

An alarm seems to have gone up through the yells. Stan is somewhere behind me, outside again and this time shouting for Alby.

I can see boys running from all directions.

Gally's never really taken much notice of me, but even he's sprinting across the field, half the Builders in his wake.

Justin catches up.

His hand reaches out and snatches at my wrist and though I'm fast enough to twist away from him, three scratches rake into my skin.

White heat races up my arm.

I let out a gasp of pain, forcing myself to move faster.

Climb a tree.

The thought flashes across my mind.

No sooner than I think it, there's a dull, resounding clang and the pressure of being chased that I felt at my back – cold, frantic – is gone.

I stop and turn around. My breathing tears up through my throat; more panic than exertion.

Newt is standing there, a long shovel balanced in his hands, his shoulders solid and expression fixed into something both fierce and horror-struck as he stares at Justin.

Justin is splayed on the ground; nothing familiar in his eyes, skin a deathly pallor. A bruise is already blossoming on his jaw around a nasty cut and it bleeds a strangely blackened colour down the side of his neck.

Newt hit him with the spade.

The boys that were racing for us all pile on Justin, holding down his limbs as he twists in wild anger and pain.

"Hold him!" One of them shouts needlessly.

"Justin! Calm down!" another says, just as hopelessly.

Newt throws aside the shovel and next thing I know he's standing in front of me, eyes boring into mine as his hands cradle my face and turn it up.

I can't find it in me to be surprised.

He feels warm.

"Hey. You okay?"

I nod, wordlessly.

I'm not okay.

Newt isn't convinced in the slightest, I can tell. A part of me is grateful for that.

Newt drops his hands, instead gently gripping my arms and turning them over. His thumb brushes the scratches on the inside of my wrist and I flinch but he holds on.

"She was swapped!" Justin screams, his head thrashing around.

My eyes slide past Newt. My heart seizes in my chest.

Alby appears, and his face is as serious as I can remember seeing it.

"Check him," he says.

It's more of an order.

Clint is knelt by Justin's side, and he points to a small tear in his pant-leg.

I move around Newt, who lets me go, but follows as I approach.

The skin under the torn jeans looks like a poisoned web; tendrils of black snake out and criss-cross away from an inflamed puncture wound nearly the size of a five pence piece.

"He's been stung," Clint confirms.

Justin's wailing has dissolved into incoherent, meaningless sentences. He mutters about Adam and being wicked and night falling too soon.

"Take him to the Pit," Alby says.

The words settle on everyone. There's a finality there that I can't fully appreciate.

Jeff and Clint both help as more than six boys lift Justin's twisting body up and carry him away.

"Need to clean that up, Evie," Dan says to me, when quiet has returned. He nods to the scratches on my arm.

"Is it infectious?" I ask.

Alby is still standing there. There's a pressing shadow in his eyes; the weight of hard choices that need to be made to preserve the life we've built here.

"No," he says. "The sting isn't."

I nod. At least that's one less concern. I'd rather not wake up tomorrow and start attacking my friends.

"What's going to happen to him?" I ask.

"He harmed another Glader," Alby says. "He'll be banished."

I feel my breath rush out of me. I pull my sleeves down over my hands, hiding the scratches. I remember the teenager who smiled at me on my first run into the Maze. "He wasn't himself; you know he'd never have done it if he was."

"It's not just that, Eva," Alby says. "He's been stung. There's no cure for that; not in here. He'll only get worse. Everyone is in danger while he stays."

I bite my lip and nod determinedly.

I know he's right.

I just feel guilty. I never got to know Justin before this. And now he's lost.

"Come on," Newt says quietly beside me. His fingers brush my elbow and I look up at him. He nods to the Medi Tent, just a stone's throw away.

I follow him without further prompting, leaving Dan, Alby and the others to return to their jobs.

I realise when I get inside that I'm rattled by the whole thing.

The adrenaline has left my system, and my hands shake as I pick up the jar of poultice.

I can feel Newt's concern like a tangible presence as he takes the jar from me gently. "I'll do it."

I sit on a stool by the workbench and hold out my arm.

"Just a little," I say blankly. "Use the tab."

Newt does as I say, picking up a flat wooden stick about the length of the average pencil, which he uses to apply some of the cold poultice to the scratches.

He keeps his eyes on the task and works meticulously.

He's strapping some gauze over the top before he speaks. His voice is quiet, soft, a strange note of steel in it.

"What did he say to you?"

I think back. I remember the words with a surprising clarity and repeat them back. My voice sounds hollow to my own ears.

"Wrong," I say. "They mixed you up. Sent to test us. Adam and Eve. They swapped you…" And then the last somewhat cohesive words he'd said before being carried away, "She was swapped."

Newt's eyes are intent when I stop, fixed on my own.

"I always knew something couldn't be right," I say, sounding more like myself. Saying it out loud has eased the tight knot in my stomach. "A girl sent to the Glade.

"But everything they do is for a reason. He said I was sent as a test. A test for what? And what does 'Adam and Eve' mean?"

Newt twists the cuff on his wrist with his other hand. "There's no Adam in the Glade," he says. "Adam and Eve were the first two people in the garden of Eden."

"Eva," I say. My name. Something sinks down into me like a lead weight. "I'm Eve. And Adam…"

"There was an Adam," Newt guesses. "But they sent you instead. Swapped."

I feel like the truth behind this is just out of reach. We need another clue that just won't come.

"How could Justin know any of this? He's been in the Glade longer than I have."

"He came up three months before you," Newt says. "It took him three days to remember his name, but he was always quick. Minho wanted to take him on from the start."

I shut my eyes tight against the sudden stinging.

I don't want to hear this.

I feel guilty that Justin will be banished before I ever got to really know him, but learning about him now – knowing how he remembered his name and found his place – feels worse.

And yet I feel like I should hear it all.

Newt's fingers brush my hair back, away from my face and I open my eyes as his hand falls.

"We don't know for sure how the Sting works," he says. "But we've guessed. It's only happened a few times; always a Runner."

This bit I know.

The Grievers are some kind of nightmare brought to life; creatures that swarm the Maze at night. Maybe they don't like sunlight, or maybe they're released when it gets dark.

Gladers tend to believe it's the latter.

No one's ever seen one and lived to tell about it.

George was the first to die – a Runner who got caught out at night.

I found the place he was murdered.

He was buried in pieces.

Stephen was the first to get stung. The story goes that the sky got dark early and he just made it back. The next day he went mad. They kept him in the Slammer for days, trying to reason with him before Alby banished him into the Maze rather than kill him.

After him, the rule was born. Anyone stung would be banished.

"The people who were stung," Newt says. "Stephen, Alfred, Justin…they were good people; brothers. They all knew the rules, and Alby and Minho did their best to explain what happens to someone when they're stung, after Stephen. None of them would have come back here knowing they were endangering others."

I frown.

But all of them returned to the Glade after being stung. None of them, to my knowledge, told anyone what had happened. Justin was apparently just exhausted when he came back so…

"You think they don't remember being stung?" I ask.

Newt gives a half nod. "It makes the most sense. Something in the sting that makes you forget it's happened immediately afterwards. You just feel tired, and by the time you remember, if you do at all, the poison's already set in and there isn't enough sanity left to explain or warn anyone."

"So when Justin and Doug got split up yesterday…"

"Justin encountered a Griever. He survived, and he wouldn't have remembered seeing it. If he does now, he's not making enough sense to tell us anything useful."

"I thought they only came out at night."

"The days change. We think they get let out earlier if the sky gets dark early. It's all controlled by the bloody creators; if they define night by the amount of light…they could be released before the Doors close."

I bite my lip, "But…if I was switched, and you were meant to get a boy called Adam instead of me…how could Justin know that?"

"When Stephen was stung…he was shouting about mind swipes, people in lab coats, drowning tanks and thirty day plans."

Our memories have been wiped.

Someone did that.

I remember feeling like I was drowning all that time ago before I woke up in the Box.

And someone new arrives every month. Every thirty days.

Newt nods. "The best we can figure is the sting somehow drags up fragments of your memory.

"Not the best way to get it back, though. Not if madness and banishment is the price."

The Medi Tent fills with silence.

We've been talking for what seems like ages, just our low voices filling the space.

My arm throbs under the gauze and poultice.

"Thanks, Newt," I say. I pull my sleeve back down over the bandage.

He nods.

"I'll be fine; you should get back to the others."

Looking reluctant, he stands up and pushes aside the stool he'd been using.

"Find someone, if you need anything," he says. "And do me a favour and stay away from the Pit."

I look up.

I'm realising that somehow, we've become close enough that he can tell I was thinking of seeing Justin.

"You can't get through to him, Eva. And whatever he's remembered, it seems to be about you. Please…just…leave it."

I nod.

I didn't know Justin that well and his fate is sealed anyway. But I know Newt – or I'm learning him, at least – and it's no difficult decision to give him this peace of mind.

He nods back, hesitates at the doorway and then leaves.

My breath rushes out and the hut seems really huge suddenly.

There will be a banishing tonight.

I'm not sure I'm ready for that.

INFO:

1. Okay, so here's hoping Newt and Eva kind of explained it for you, but I want to clarify on this. The theorising in this chapter of how the sting works is mainly my own conjecture and thoughts. And its almost entirely based in what we see of the sting and the Changing in the film, with little titbits of book fact. We know what happens when someone is stung, we know it's happened before Ben - since its just the fact it occured during the day that surprises anyone - and all the Gladers know that once you're stung, you get banished, because there is no cure. And there's also the fact that no one has seen a Griever and lived to tell it at this point. So I started thinking over a way that any of this may fit together. This is the result of that. Something in the sting that causes amnesia of the event itself, so they return to the Glade unaware and with no memories of the monsters. And in order for the running partner not to have witnessed anything, they would have to have been split up.

So in short, I hope this is a believable explanation for you all. As I said, its based on what information we're given, but I've added a healthy dose of my own theories to it. If any of you watched the film and wondered about it or formed your own ideas, feel free to share; I'm intrigued in what other solutions you may have come up with.

2. You may recognise a couple of parallels. (Ironic, since they occur later on). That's intentional.

And lastly - the next bit doesn't seem to break off in an easy place, so would you prefer two shorter chapters, posted within a couple of days, or one longer one?

Chapter 9 - Teaser

My breath catches in surprise.

This is the first time I've been hugged. Perhaps ever. I don't think it's something I usually like, but today it tethers me to the world for a moment.

-To be posted next week-