Questions // Mazerunner

30-In which we take another step

The doors didn't open for three days. Every morning the runners would wait, and yet every morning they never left. Newt only repeated his conversation with Maddy once, on the third day.

"Maddy, I'm being serious now," he was almost whining, the desperation clear in his voice, "please, isn't it obvious. They don't want you to do it. It's not the way out." His face was crinkled into a frown and his lips drew at thin line. "Please?"

Maddy closed her eyes for just a second longer than blinking, hardly noticeable to those not watching. But Newt was watching, for anything, his senses were wide awake all the time and he could almost feel what she would say, do. He knew what was coming. And it only deepened the pit of misery inside him.

"No Newt. If they didn't want me to do it, they shouldn't have put me here. They can't control us now, but we can get out. I will get out." Her teeth were drifted and she balled her fists up, as if she was desperately trying to hold back a tidal wave. "I will get out. We will get out. This is the way, I know it. It has to be."

Newt took her small hand in his rougher one and held it tight. "I know. We'll get out. But there must be another way." Maddy shook her head and got up. Her footsteps left little indents in the undergrowth as she walked out of the forest away from him, and as he left, he kicked up the holes and it looked as if she'd never been there.

In the evening, he crept to bed late, away from the lookout post. He had been watching, almost searching, for a sign, a clue, as to why the doors closed. Why they kept staying closed. There was nothing.
Nothing. Eventually, as the sun began to peek over the walls behind him, he climbed down and headed to bed. As she slipped into an empty dream he thought to himself, somebody needs to do something. I need to get out, he thought.

Misery washed over his like a rising tide and drowned him in sleep. When he woke the next morning, he still couldn't breathe under the weight of the water, and his head was hardly floating. It was too much.

The sun beat down on the doors as the ever dwindling crowd of runners watched and waited. By noon, it was only Newt and Ben left. "Do you think they're ever gonna open again?" Ben couldn't quite hide the nervous edge to his voice.

"Yes. We'll get out. It'll be fin-" A creaking noise covered Newts voice, echoing off the four walls and back into their ears ten times louder. "Yeah, I think they're gonna open."

Newt smiled at Ben as the doors opened in front of them, revealing the long grey corridor. "Let's go."

A few minutes later, all the runners had left, each searching for a different reason the doors were closed. All looking for something they would never find in the maze.

Because although Newt insisted, and Maddy refused to acknowledge, he was right. Unbeknownst to her, Maddy was the reason the doors had stayed shut.

And Maddy was also the reason they opened now.

A/N Hii! 4 chapters left :) that was probably the last remotely happy one... Oops. Anyway, please keep reading bc the reads are going up like crazy. 1.64k? Thank you so much 😊 Do you want a sequel? I REALLY NEED TO KNOW
Thanks again
-Katie