Into The WICKED Maze | A Maze Runner Story (English Version)

59. An unknown section

The next morning I felt much better. Even though Minho knocked to wake me before the gates opened, I had regained enough strength to start the new day.
I dressed quickly, picking up the clothes Newt had thrown on the floor in the evening, and then made my way to the lake, where I washed them and myself first. As I slipped into dry clothes and hung the wet ones on a tree, the cold water had washed the last of the tiredness from me and I felt wide awake.
I looked for Minho and found him at Fry Pan's, where he was having breakfast. I also grabbed some bread and packed something in my bag for lunch. We still got our bottles and also took something for Thomas before we set off to get him out of the Slammer and then into the maze in time with the opening of the gates.
"Do you think we can really do it? That we can find an exit?" I asked quietly as we crossed the glade.
"I don't know. I think that at least the first time we really have a chance. That Thomas-guy is crazy, but that's probably what we needed."
I nodded. He was right, Thomas really was different from anyone who had come up to us before. I wondered what made him so special.
We reached the pit and crouched down in front of it. Thomas was already awake and seemed to have been waiting for us.
"Big day, Greenie. You sure you don't want to sit this one out?" Minho asked with a laugh.
"Or maybe you want to stay in there after all?" I joked.
Thomas laughed as well. "Come on, man, get me out of here."
"Alright." Minho opened the bars and helped him out.
"The gates should open in a minute," I said as we walked towards the still-closed gate that would open today.
As if on cue, it began to open and we waited until it was open wide enough for us to fit through.
"Let's go!" Minho shouted and ran off. I followed on his heels, aware that he wanted to annoy Thomas a little. He ran after us as fast as he could and kept up surprisingly well. Many were fast, but being fast over a long distance was difficult.
"This way!" Minho shouted as we went further and further into the maze. "Not much further to the inner ring, let's go!"
I had to laugh because it must have seemed to Thomas like we were sprinting through the maze like lunatics every day, even though we usually took the time to jog.
We moved deeper and deeper into it until we reached the inner ring, as we called it. From here the eight sections went off. Minho didn't slow down and we dutifully followed him, even though Thomas fell behind a little. We ran past sections five and six and reached section seven faster than we ever had. Maybe Minho ran like that because he didn't want to lose time. If that was the case, he had definitely succeeded.
Now we slowed our steps. Minho and I exchanged a glance. Section seven was open, although it shouldn't be.
"That's strange," he muttered.
"What?" Thomas asked curiously.
"Seven's not supposed to be open for another week," Minho explained.
"That hasn't happened once in all the last three years. The sections were always open on time, always in the same order, without exception..." I said.
Something was different.
At walking pace we walked along between the walls, looking for something that indicated that something was different. We reached the blades and Thomas looked around with wide eyes.
"What the hell is this place?" he asked.
"We call them blades." That was all Minho explained. What else was there to say? After all, we didn't know what they were for either.
We crossed the field and were almost through when Thomas suddenly pointed to something lying on the ground. We jogged towards it and I recognised Ben's things.
Minho lifted up a blood-soaked top and I had to swallow to get rid of the lump in my throat that had formed.
"It's Ben's, isn't it?"
"Yeah." Minho's voice threatened to break and he stood up again. "A Griever must have pulled him down here."
"Let's go on and..." I began as a noise came up that we couldn't place at first. It seemed to be coming from us, but where it was coming from I didn't know.
Confused, Minho and I looked at each other when suddenly Thomas grabbed him and turned him around so fast that he let out a "Whoa, hey!" Now Thomas rummaged in Minho's pocket and the next moment pulled out the thing we had taken from the Griever. Now it was also clear where the noise had come from.
"What's it doing?" I asked, puzzled, but Thomas didn't answer me, instead turning in circles, looking for the direction from which the signal seemed to be coming that was making the thing beep. It was getting louder and clearer.
"I think it's showing us the way," Thomas stated, looking incredulously in the direction the signal seemed to be coming from. I followed his gaze but could not for the life of me make out anything that could trigger it.
Now he ran off and followed the signal. We ran after him and kept changing the exact direction because the sound suddenly became fainter. He led us into a passage I had never seen before. To our right and left there was a deep drop and in front of us there seemed to be a kind of gate, but it was locked.
"Minho, Anna, you ever see this place before?" Thomas asked, his voice echoing off the walls.
"No," we answered as if from the same mouth. This was new.
The noise the thing made got louder and louder and when I looked up at the wall with the gate, I realised that the letters "W.C.K.D." were also written there.
"Ahh, it's just another dead end," Minho cursed as we reached the closed gate.
But suddenly, as Thomas got a little closer to the gate, a loud noise rang out, the red flashing turned green and the thing made a high-pitched sound as if something was being confirmed. The gate began to open by going up and we all wheeled around.
"Holy shit," I whispered.
The gate gave a view of others who were also about to go up, clearing the way for us. We could see some kind of gate in the last wall, but it was round and made of metal, and now it was opening too.
"You sure about this?" Minho asked Thomas before we dared to walk under the gates.
"Nope," he replied and started walking. I felt quite uncomfortable because the gates that were now hanging over us scared me and I didn't trust that they wouldn't just close again.
We stopped in front of the round opening and Minho, whose arm I was holding onto by now because I was quite scared after all, grabbed the wall and found that it was full of Griever slime.
"Grievers." His voice echoed off the walls. We looked at his hand in disgust.
Then everything happened very quickly. A sound rang out, this time from the tube in front of us and a red light began to flash excitedly inside. A laser scanning us appeared and the thing seemed to realise that we were not Grievers because another strange noise sounded.