Steel and Stone [The Maze Runner (Scorch Trials) Fanfiction]

Arrival

I don't even bother to speak, I just turn around and kiss him. On the other side of the room, lays a huge table overflowing with food of all sorts. But that's not what surprised me. What surprised me, is our  visitor.

"Told ya." Minho snickers, picking up a bag of chips from the pile. "He won't say a word, just keeps telling us to wait until it's time."

"Wha- how? How did he get in?" I ask, starting to make my way across the room. The man sits in a chair, behind a desk, nose buried in a book whose cover I can't read. His black hair is greying, pale blue eyes surrounded by wrinkles.

"Don't know, he was already here when we woke up." Newt answers, making his way towards us.

"Can't we make him talk?" I ask. Even if we are weak from hunger, we definitely have numbers on our side. Besides, he doesn't look like he would put up much of a fight, unless he has a weapon, which is possible.

"Tried that, he's protected by an invisible wall." Minho answers, holding out the bag of chips. Frustrated, I take one and shove it on my mouth.

"When it's time? What is that supposed to mean?" I ask, angrily throwing my hands in the air.

Newt shrugs, "No idea."

I start walking towards the man, keeping my hands out in front of me until I hit the wall. It feels like glass, solid and cold, but no matter which way I turn my head, or how long I stare at it, I can't see anything. No evidence of a solid structure standing before me. Yet, no matter how hard I press, it doesn't crack, budge, or bend. The man never once looks up from his book in all the time I spend studying the invisible wall.

"Hey you!" I yell pounding on the glass wall. "Hey! Tell us what's going on?!"

The man begrudgingly lift his head from the book, laying it face down on the desk to mark his place. His stern eyes narrow at me, before he leans back in his chair and sighs. "Look, there is still forty-seven minutes before I am authorized to begin phase two of the trials, I will explain everything then, now, if you'll please leave me alone, I am trying to read." Surprisingly, his voice is not muffled at all by the glass, I even hear him mumbling about 'why they had to send him and hour early to sit with a bunch of insolent teenagers'. Whatever, it's not like I'm exactly excited to see him either. He can only mean bad things are coming.

"Wow, I'm surprised you even got him to say that much." Minho remarks, coming over to join me near the glass wall. Which is about ten feet from where the man sits having resumed his reading.

"Psshh, he still told us nothing?" I say, turning my back to the man behind the wall.

"Ya but at least he told you when he would tell us something, that's the most Ratman's said all day."

"Ratman?" I ask, heading back towards the pile of food. It's astonishing what you can put aside when you're hungry, almost anything can become a second priority to food. Even mysterious men behind invisible glass walls, saying scary sounding things. Even they don't compare to food.

"Ya that's what we call him." Minho answers with a shrug. "Because he kinda looks like a rat."

"Ya, figured that part out." I reply, peeling away the skin of an orange. I don't even bother to throw away the peels, I just toss them casually to the floor. The floor is already full of discarded pieces of trash; we are all too hungry to care. Plus, something tells me we won't be here much longer.

Thirty minutes later we all sit on the floor, in a semi-circle around the glass wall. Like little kids eagerly awaiting story time. But this is no fairytale, this is a nightmare turned reality. I check my watch, two minutes until he gives us answers; answers I'm not sure I want.