Newt Imagines (The Maze Runner)

Choices

You were not expecting the boys to stop by your room, which might have been why you decided to go with them in the first place. You do not know them, these grinning strangers, the ones whose shoulders shake with the effort of holding back inside jokes you may never understand even as they tiptoe around the corners of the complex.

Most of them are waiting in the hall outside the door to your room, lingering in the harsh shadows cast by these flickering fluorescent lights, but one of them slips inside when you tentatively crack open your door. This boy is blond, with eyes that flash you a smile when you let him in without another word.

He leans back against the wall of your room, glancing back through your still quarter-open door to nod at his brethren that all is going well. You're not alone in your room, as there are several racks of bunkbeds all containing the surviving inhabitants of your Maze, but for some reason this boy only seems interested in you. Perhaps he knew that of everyone, you'd be the one to open the door, and you'd be the one to leave the rest of them behind. Perhaps your fate was written even before you heard him knock.

Regardless, the boy still allows you to put him through his paces, and he listens attentively as you question him for his name, what he thinks he's doing up at this hour, what plans he has to not get caught by the guards, and why he's come to you, of all people. You haven't even met him before other than a curious glance across the cafeteria whenever new groups of survivors trickle into the complex.

In the face of all that confusion, the blond boy just smiles. "The name's Newt," he says, "and we're trying to answer our own questions, that's why we're here. A couple things around here just don't add up. You've noticed, haven't you?"

You nod once. "Yeah, but why me specifically? Anyone can tell that the people around here aren't quite right. I'm not even from your Maze, why would you come to me?"

Newt chuckles quietly, although you're not sure that you said anything particularly funny. "I said it already, didn't I? Not everyone's as open to the thought that the people who rescued them might not be working in their favor. As far as I can tell, you're more inclined than the others to do something about it. My friends and I just want to figure out how much is truth and how much is fiction. The only thing we can think of to do is to explore this place for real."

Newt glances one last time around the room to make sure he's not being overheard, but he doesn't have to bother. The rest of the people from your Maze are heavy sleepers, especially when they're trying to get rid of lingering exhaustion from all they went through to escape.

He heads towards the door once more, then pauses, silhouetted in the light from the outside hall. "It's up to you, though. No hard feelings either way."

Then he's gone, leaving you with your thoughts. It is dangerous to leave the relative safety of your room, certainly, especially when you're not too sure how Janson's men will feel about catching you out of your room past curfew.

However, Newt's offering you the luxury of free will, and since when have you ever been able to choose what you want in life? You run or you die, you stay in the complex or you disappear. For as long as you've been able to remember, your world has consisted of forced options, one after another. Newt's being honest, you can tell that even in the few moments you've spent knowing him. If you didn't come with him tonight, he wouldn't hold it against you. It is truly up to you.

For that reason, you know you have to go. You're not sure how many choices you get in your kind of life, and even this bare hint at freedom is worth it to you. Despite his reassurance that it's totally your choice, you notice that Newt still looks pleased when you join him out in the hallway a few seconds later.

"Alright, then," he says, glancing between his other friends and you, "Let's figure out just what they're keeping from us."

You're not sure what you were expecting to be lurking behind the seemingly pristine walls of Janson's complex, but it wasn't the experiments. Aris is the one who finds it at first, another one of Newt's group despite the fact that he was originally in a completely separate Maze. You're not sure why there are so many groups; perhaps the Creators wanted countless tests. You can only wonder how many there truly are, and how many were never rescued at all.