Reshuffled || Maze Runner Fanfiction

The Flare

I'd like to say the next few days went great.

They didn't.

By the second morning, more Gladers had arrived from the box. Both girls and boys. In four days, ten new Gladers appeared. Seven girls and three boys. Missy, Tanya, Gwen, Hazel, Bethany, Maple, and Teresa were my charges. Gidget, Sam, and Thomas were Newt's. Now, in the cold light of the morning, with frost clinging to the grass and flowers, I see the group of girls huddled together. They're frightened. Some are in shock.

The maze has moved into the Glade quickly. Two more deaths have occured since the first movement. Already, most of the livestock is dead. As a gardener, I've worked on transplanting most of the vegetables to the inner circle of the Glade, but many of the plants have wilted from the cold. Oh- and add that to the list of problems. The Glade has gotten progressively colder. I'm expecting to see snow in the next week.

I turn my attention back to the conversation at hand. Minho and Alby are discussing our growing list of problems, but most of the 'discussion' is a repetitive argument. I share a look with Newt, who's standing opposite of me.

"That's great, Minho," Alby snarls, "But sending more teams to explore the maze will just cause more death. We're running out of food."

"And if we sit our butts on the ground and shucking waste away until all these shanks are dead- how is that much better?"

"Oh, I don't know, Minho- but it's better than telling all these shanks that we're desperate enough to cause their certain shucking death! We're hanging on by a thread, right now."

"Panic has already happened," Minho's adamant about it. The maze is the answer, he's 100% sure. He keeps telling me, and then he tells Newt, and then Newt pulls me aside and asks me if I agree, and I tell him I don't know, Newt, I'm a shucking greenie, and then the whole circle repeats. Over and over, multiple times in the past four days.

But part of me does lean toward the Maze. It's dangerous and deadly, that's for sure, but it's also the only answer. Why build a maze if it's not the only way out? Why make an impossible puzzle with a bunch of brain-washed kids if you're not planning something?

A loud piercing noise cuts off my train of thought. The Box- again. I almost want to scream at these REBEL creators. More people in line for slaughter.

The Gladers all fall silent as Newt and I push through the crowd. Everyone's sick of greenies, even I can tell. Newt pulls the metal doors open, the squeal of the hinges loud compared to the silence of the Glade. Light floods the Box, and I'm expecting cornered, terrified kids. I lean in to look, to check if I'm needed to help, but-

-I nearly vomit.

My body convulses, bile leaping into my throat. Everything in my revulses at what I just saw- oh, goodness, all that blood. My blood seems to take a sluggish, terrified quality.

"Oh, what shucking luck." Minho growls from behind me. I force myself to take a breath, to hold back any vomit, and open my eyes.

The Box is full of blood and ripped flesh. Inside, two dead shanks. And a third is screaming at the top of his lungs, but at nothing and no one in particular. His eyes gleam with an empty look, as though there was nothing inside his head. I resist the urge to cover my ears, watching as he bangs his head on the walls of the Box.

The two dead shanks in the box are already stinking. Their flesh is torn and their blood is puddled on the floor, their eyes still open in a frozen look of terror, but just as empty as the boy's. I can't discern their appearance, but I already hurt for them, even though I've never met them.