The Glader

The Aftermath

I'm sorry, Minho and Tommy.

I closed my eyes, trying to shut out the whirr of the Griever's machinery.

Waiting to die.

Then it stopped.

Everything fell silent.

I cracked open one eye to see that the Griever before me had stopped advancing.

Then, as I watched, it's instruments withdrew into it's skin, and it curled in on itself, shutting down.

I peeled myself off the Griever I had been stuck too, looking around to see all the living Gladers staring around at the dormant monsters.

Without the spikes and the probes, they resembled large grey blobs of jello.

I nudged one with my foot, but it didn't move.

Well, the blubber jiggled a bit, but other than that, it didn't move.

I glanced around again, and what I saw was terrible.

Gladers.

So many Gladers, thrown to the ground in various poses of death.

Just a few feet away from me was Jeff, his eyes wide with his last moments of fear.

I leaned down and pushed his eyelids gently closed, feeling tears beginning to haze over my vision.

Then I staggered over to the side of the Maze corridor and was violently sick.

Wiping off my mouth, I turned around.

Where was Minho?

There was the Keeper of the Runners, standing in the middle of the carnage, holding his club loosely in one hand, his unfocused gaze staring blearily at a body.

It was so mangled that I couldn't tell whose it was, but I wasn't going to ask.

Minho jumped as I put a hand on his shoulder.

"Do you think Tommy did it?" I asked, feeling my voice crack as I spoke.

"I suppose we'd better go check. Why else would the Grievers have shut down?" he said, his voice monotone and flat from the violence.

Slowly, like someone in a daze, he made his way over to the Griever Hole and jumped in.

"Gladers! To me!" I called.

Bruised, dirty, bloody, and covered in Griever slime, the boys who had lived limped over to me, all staring around at the fallen bodies of their comrades and the deactivated Grievers with almost confused expressions.

"Buggin' good, work, all of you. We made it through the battle!" I told them, although I didn't feel like I'd made it, "The Grievers have been shut down, so I'm guessin' Tommy and Teresa put in the code. Now, unless you're blind, I'm also guessin' you're seeing what I'm seeing. We've just lost half our ranks," the statistic caught in my throat. Too many. "But the worst part is over, right? We made it, and that's what counts. After we've escaped, we can have some time to grieve and continue. But right now, let's focus on the task at hand- escapin'!"

It seemed like the right thing for a leader to say.

I hoped it was the right thing.

"Now let's get down that Griever Hole!" I called.

I turned away so they wouldn't see the tear slipping down my cheek.