The Maze Runner AE (another ending :)) )

Prologue

'My name is Victoria...' That was the only thing she could remember, the only thing she wanted to remember. She wanted to forget about the pain, about the syringes, about the horrible experiments. She just wanted to forget.

"Tory..."

She was looking at him again. The boy with brown hair and green eyes saying over and over again: 'Go! It'll be alright!'. It wasn't. They caught them and sent them down to the labs. No one comes back from the labs!

"Tory..."

A photo flashed before her eyes. Four little kids: three boys, one girl. They were smiling and singing. She knew them from somewhere...

"Victoria, wake up already!"

"Huh?" she opened her eyes. "Rue?"

"No, the queen of England! Of course it's me! Who else around here has the balls to enter your tent?" Rue answered. Victoria was about to swear, but saw that her friend was not in a good mood so she decided not to do anything that would upset the girl. Rue started cleaning the room of dirty clothes and empty dishes.

"Get dressed. The girls are waiting for you..." and with that Rue got out of the room.

Victoria was confused, but she got dressed nevertheless, took a bite of the bread on her table and went out. The glade was very quiet. Everybody seemed to be still asleep, except for the cook, Frizzy, who was preparing breakfast. The girl waved so Victoria waved back.

She stood outside her tent and looked up at the square large opening above her that revealed a navy blue sky. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The smell of the farm in the far corner of the glade, combined with the smell of bacon and coffee gave Victoria a familiar feeling of peace and calm, though she knew better than to relax in such times. She opened her eyes, glanced once more at the beautiful sky, than turned her head to look at the big wall on her left.

Three girls were seated on the grass next to a big opening in the wall. 'It's pretty late.' Victoria thought, making her way towards them.

"Morning, mates!" Victoria said trying to look sober. "Why aren't y'all out there, solving the maze?"

Sarah, Rose and Maya were the explorers. Their job was to go out into the maze and find a way out of that hell hole. Sarah had brown, shoulder length hair and small, friendly green eyes. She was rather big and beefy for a 16 years old girl and she was taller than the other girls. Rose was a small, skinny girl, kind of the opposite of her best friend Sarah. She had brown eyes and dark-blonde hair. Victoria really liked these two. They were friendly, nice and very efficient. The last girl, Maya, was a real pain in the back side. She was always complaining about everything, which sometimes was good, but she usually got on Victoria's nerves. Maya had light brown hair and small, mean black eyes. The three looked pretty concerned about something. Victoria started to worry.

"Well, Red, you see... we thought that... since you can't come..." Sarah started, stumbling on her words.

"...you will all get a small vacation, or what?!" Victoria cut her off. She was really frustrated because they already talked about this. "Listen: we are so close to figuring this bloody maze out. Let's not give up yet. Besides, you were free last week when the gates were blocked."

"Exactly! We're not that plumped up about going back out there. Maybe they changed the freaking rules. What if nothing is the same?" Maya shot at Victoria, fear, despair and exasperation in her voice.

Victoria had thought about that ever since she woke up one morning and the doors didn't open. What was the reason they were still shut? Why did it last a week? What happened? What did this mean for them? Concern must have shown on her face because Maya continued:

"Why can't you go first?"

"My leg, dummy! Not healed yet." Victoria replied, looking almost wishfully at her leg, than towards the maze. "Listen up!" she continued with lower voice, catching the girls attention. "I need to know what happened out there this last week. I don't think it can wait until I'm all healed up. You just need to get to The Wheel and see what happened." The girls still looked down so she added: "I know it is too much to ask of you, but just think about freedom. Figuring out this maze must be worth it. If there is someone around here that I trust most and that I'm sure will succeed, that is you three! Come on!" she smiled at the trio. They gave a weak smile back and got up.

The sky was a nice shade of light blue by the time the girls entered the maze, took the turn left and disappeared. Victoria stood there, looking after them, many things running through her head, fighting, disappearing and reappearing. She was thinking about the maze, the reason they were sent there, the people... no. The things that sent them there. It seemed like hours had past.

"Earth to Red! Ya 'kay?" a little girl asked. She had golden hair and piercing black eyes. "Rue told me to tell ya to go to tee doctors tent." she said with a little child's voice and a weird accent on each word that snatched Victoria from her daydream.

"Yeah!... Thanks, Lily!" and with that she started towards the big crimson tent on the right side of the glade.

She was about to enter the tent when a skin crawling scream echoed through the glade. 'Here we go again!' Victoria thought to herself than she entered.