Her Anchor || Newt - Maze Runner

Part 32 - Once and For All

Question of the Post: What would your job in the Glade be?

I think the best job, for me, would be Runner because I am a long-distance runner and have a surprisingly good memory.  What about yall?

It felt like decades as we awaited Thomas's return from the unconscious. The six of us, Newt, Minho, Frypan, Ace, Chuck and I, crowded around the Slammer, Teresa inside with the unconscious boy. The early afternoon sun was beaming down on everyone, soaking our backs with sweat. We all watched in silence as Thomas' head kept on shaking in Teresa's lap, before settling into calmness, brown eyes fluttering open.

'Hey, are you okay?' Teresa asked as they made unnecessarily long eye contact. 

'What the hell were you thinking?' questioned Chuck, annoyed, but worried, interrupting Thomas and Teresa's PDA moment. The runner lifted his head, eyes scanning the group hurriedly.

'What happened?' he queried

'Gally's taken control. He said we had a choice,' answered Newt, referring to what Gally had said earlier that day, 'Either join him or get banished at sundown with you.'

Thomas let those words sink in before readjusting his stiffened body, resting up against a rugged stone wall in the corner. 'And the others agreed to that?'

'Gally has everyone convinced that you're the reason all this has happened.' Teresa replied, eyes resting on her fiddling hand, planted in her lap

'Well, he's been right so far.' Thomas said. You could feel the curiosity peaking in the group, everyone waiting for Thomas to continue, hoping for some answers of some sort

'What are you talking about?' asked Ace

'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'd give us these challenges. They were experimenting on us and then people started disappearing. Every month, one after the other, like clockwork.'

'Sending them up into the Maze?' I proposed

'Yeah, but not all of us.'

'What do you mean?' Newt queried

'Guys, I'm one of us.' Thomas admitted 'The people who put you in here, I worked with them. I watched you guys for years. The entire time you've been here, I... I was on the other side of it. So were you.' admitted Thomas, last part of the sentence directed at Teresa. I could sense the sorrow and guilt in his voice. That didn't stop my anger from bubbling in my throat. He watched us get hurt, suffer and die and decided to do nothing about it. 

'What?' asked Teresa, voice cracking a little bit, words struggling to escape her throat

'Teresa, we did this to them.'

Teresa shook her head, tears prickling her eyes 'No. That can't be true.'

'It is. I saw it.'

'Why would they send us up if we were with them?'

'It doesn't matter.'

'He's right.' Newt interrupted 'It doesn't matter. Any of it. Because the people we were before the Maze, they don't even exist anymore. These Creators took care of that. But what matters is who we are now and what we do right now. You went into the Maze and you found a way out.'

'Yeah, but if I hadn't, Alby would still be alive'

'Maybe' I could sense a crack in Newts voice next to me at the name of his dead friend 'But I know that if he was here, he would be telling you the exact same thing. Pick your ass up and finish what you started. Because if we do nothing, then that means Alby died for nothing and I can't have that.'

'Okay, but we gotta get through Gally first.'

My mind raced with possible solutions, until I caught onto a plan and kept following it. 'I have an idea for that, but if it doesn't work, we are all shunked.' I answered, cogs in my brain quickly forming on how to leave this place once and for all.

word count: 660