Error | The Maze Runner / Newt ² ✓

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Disclaimer:

I do not own The Maze Runner, but these disclaimers are getting kind of sucky, so just pretend this one was really witty and funny.

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The room was packed with Gladers. After we had eaten most of the food and moved the giant pile elsewhere, we sat on the floor and waited for Rat Man to speak. It was almost as if we were toddlers, holding onto water bottles and juice boxes. In my own hands was a mug of hot chocolate. There had been one for every person, but most people had downed theirs despite the temperature of the liquid.

I wasn't sure how long we had been sitting there, but it was long enough for my back to grow stiff and my butt to hurt. I had changed sitting positions about ten times. Minho had just finished calling Thomas "one ugly shank", to which my brother pointed out that if he was ugly, so was I, because we looked somewhat the same. Minho then proceeded to tell Thomas he was the most handsome male he had ever seen. Newt looked like he wanted to shoot them both.

"Shut your bloody holes," Newt whispered, though it was more like a hiss. "I think it's time."

Well, he sure took his time, I thought as Rat Man put his feet on the floor and closed the book, tossing it carelessly on the desk. He rolled the chair backward and dug through the contents of a drawer. After nothing but silence on our part and the sound of his rummaging, the man produced a manila folder packed with papers arranged in an incredibly unorganized manner.

"Ah, here it is," Rat Man said, clearly pleased that he had actually found the thing. He opened the folder and laid it on the desk. "Thank you for gathering in an orderly manner so I can tell you what I've been...instructed to tell you. Please listen carefully."

"Why do you need that wall?" Minho shouted in reference to the invisible barrier between us and the man. If I had stepped any closer during our feud, I would've smacked right into something hard and stable that I couldn't see.

"Because he's a coward and is afraid that a bunch of teenagers will kill him," I muttered beneath my breath quietly enough that only Thomas managed to hear it. He snorted.

"Shut it!" Newt exclaimed as he reached around my brother and I and punched Minho in the arm, having only heard him and not me.

The man continued as if he hadn't heard or was just really good at ignoring us. "You're all still here because of an uncanny will to survive despite the odds, among...other reasons. About sixty people were sent to live in the Glade. Well, our Glade, anyway. Another sixty in Group B. But for now we'll forget them."

I felt my blood run cold as if I had swallowed a glass of iced water, or my blood had somehow frozen despite the regulated temperature of my body. I went completely rigid as Rat Man's eyes flickered to Aris, and then - so briefly that if I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't already known where I was supposed to belong - they landed on me before he turned back to the file.

"Out of all those people, only a fraction survived to be here today. I'm assuming you've figured this out by now, but many of the things that happened to you are solely for the purpose of judging and analyzing your responses. And it's not really an experiment as much as it is...constructing a blueprint. Stimulating the Killzone and collecting the resultant patterns. Putting them all together to achieve the greatest breakthrough in the history of science and medicine.

"These situations inflicted upon you are called the variables, and each one has been meticulously thought out. I'll explain more soon. And although I can't tell you everything at this time, it's vital that you know this much: these trials you're going through are for a very important cause. Continue to respond well to the variables, continue to survive, and you will be rewarded with the knowledge that you've played a part in saving the human race. And yourselves, of course."