In The Maze

Chapter twenty-seven (Y/N)

Last chapter! Shoutout to all of my faithful readers who I'm immensely thankful for and love platonically with a capital P;) You're all amazing and I can't thank you enough for all of your kind words and support! Your comments made me so freaking happy and have increased my confidence tenfold. Some of the nicest comments I've ever received were on this fic and it's incredibly validating as a writer.

On the flip side, this story got very little feedback overall which was extremely disappointing and disheartening. I was hoping more people would like this story as much as I enjoyed writing it, but I guess that was a false hope. Maybe this fic will catch on in the future although I doubt it.

But, despite that, I loved writing this story (and interacting with my readers) so I intend on writing a sequel or possibly sequels. It'd mean the world to me if you stuck around to read them. Check back in around May 1st for the sequel!
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We were all waiting by the Slammer when Thomas came to. The Glade, the only home we'd ever known, was in shambles. Multiple fires still burned, buildings were razed, and dead bodies littered the ground. It resembled a war zone. Our little rag-tag group consisted of Newt, Minho, Chuck, and myself, not including Thomas and Teresa who were locked up. The rest of the gladers had either joined Gally or remained on the fence, unsure what to believe or how to proceed.

"What the fucking Hell were you thinking?" I snapped. If wooden bars hadn't separated us, I would've slapped Thomas in the face. His compulsiveness made him reckless at times. "You could have died, dumbass."

"What happened?" He looked up at us.

Newt leaned against Minho's leg that was propped up on one of the lower bars, reducing the pressure against his right leg. His hand firmly gripped mine. Neither of us had been able to let go of each other since my memories came back. "Gally has taken control. He said we had a choice. Either join him or get banished at sundown with you."

"And the others agreed to that?"

Minho gestured over his shoulder. "Gally has everyone convinced that you're the reason all this has happened."

Guilt took over Thomas' face and he sighed dejectedly. "Well, he's been right so far."

"What are you talking about?"

"This place... it's not what we thought it was. It's not a prison, it's a test. It all started when we were kids. They would give us these... these challenges. They were experimenting on us. And then people started disappearing. Every month, one after the other, like clockwork."

"They were sending them up into the maze. Fuck." My memories were right.

"Yeah," hesitantly, the brunet added, "but not all of us."

"What do you mean?" Newt's brows scrunched up, his grip tightening.

He and I discussed our memories frequently. Dissected them to find more clues about our past. Any scrap of evidence that could help us learn more about who we used to be and what landed us here. But neither of us knew exactly how involved Thomas was with W.I.C.K.E.D and the trials. Apparently, he was a bigger player in the game than I thought.

"Guys, I'm one of them." He scrubbed a hand down his face and leaned away from the rock wall of the Pit. For a moment, it looked like he would be sick. "The people who put you here, I worked with them. I watched you guys for years. The entire time you've been here... I was on the other side of it. So were you."

"What?" Teresa gasped, disgusted by the idea.

"Teresa, we did this to them."

"No. That can't be true."