Amnesia: A Maze Runner Fanfiction

c h a p t e r . f o u r

Kitted up and stood at the doors of the maze, I felt they couldn't open fast enough.

Minho was stood solemnly at my side, waiting for the doors to slide open. I was bouncing on my toes, psyching myself up. Today I'd get my first look at the Maze, my first look at a Runner's job, and I could hardly wait. The urge inside me was just as strong as ever - I had to be a Runner.

The huge slabs of rock suddenly shuddered, and slowly began to move apart, opening up a large corridor. The stone walls inside were just as tall and thick as the doors, but covered almost top to bottom in thick, green vines.

Minho took a couple of steps past the threshold of the Glade and into the Maze, turned back to look at me, and just set off running. I ran close behind him, following which ever way he'd take me. We were starting fast, but I felt my stamina was good, and I was enjoying it.

We began in silence, just running and running, only a whistling sound resonating in my ears as the wind whipped around my face and my hair.

"Alright, Greenie," Minho started. He dropped back a little so we were running side by side. "This Maze is huge. We're gonna cover a small section close to the Glade today, for ya to get a feel for it."

"Good that," I agreed. He smirked.

"Glader words sound better in your mouth than they do Thomas'," he commented. I raised my eyebrows and grinned. "I reckon it's 'cause you got Newt's accent."

"I'll take that," I said, flattered.

We kept up the conversations, sometimes talking about the Maze, being a Runner, and other times about other things - anything, really. In was in this time that I discovered what a a sarcastic little - uh, shank - Minho was, so of course, we got on excellently.

We had no freak Griever incidents, no wall-crushing accidents, no splitting up or getting lost. I felt tired but good, and actually to some extent, safe.

I noticed the sky had been progressively getting dimmer, and as daylight slipped away, we rounded the corner that showed us the exit. The lush grass of the Glade shimmered in front of us like an oasis, at the end of a long stretch of corridor. Suddenly, a low rumbling sound filled my ears, and the door began to move, slowly but steadily. Ready to block us in.

"Hurry!" Minho called out urgently, breaking into a full sprint down down the final straight.

I sprinted as fast as my legs would carry me, and when I reached the doors, the corridor was barely wide enough for a single person to fit through. Minho was ahead of me, pushing forward, until his front foot hit the grass and he lunged to the floor out of the way. I was barely a step behind, and I burst out just as the stone behind me crashed together with an echoing thud, and I fell to my knees on the grass, gasping for breath.

"Good job, Greenie," Minho laughed, just as winded as me.

Sat in the map room, I watched a focused Minho hunched over a piece of paper, drawing out a detailed sketch of the Maze, and filling in the path we'd taken.

"Same as always," he muttered under his breath. He sat back, and I stared intently at his sketch, following both the route he'd drawn on the page and the route I'd remembered taking in my head.

"Hang on," I frowned, pointing to a place on the map. "That wasn't a dead end there."

"What are you talking about?" Minho pulled out another map from a chest, and it was identical. Obviously one he'd made the last time he ran that particular route.

"Yeah, I'm sure of it. Maybe you never noticed it before." Minho scoffed.

"Impossible. I've run every inch of the Maze myself."

"Wait. You mean you've mapped the whole thing?"

"Yeah. If there was a way out, we would have found it by now. But we don't tell them this, the others, see. 'Cause we don't wanna let everyone know it's hopeless."

"So everyone's living on false hope?"

"It's the best thing to do. We ain't gettin' out of here."

"Well, no one knows what's down there," I said, pointing to that same apparent dead end on the map. "I swear to you, there was something down there. I thought we were coming back to it, or we didn't need to go down there, or whatever, so I didn't say anything. It did just look like nothing. But I swear, it wasn't."

Minho shook his head. "It is nothing. It's just a cliff." He sighed, as though he decided to reveal the truth. "It's the cliff."

"The cliff?"

"Yeah. Effectively a dead-end. It's just a cliff."

"So you do know about it."

"Sure. Everyone does. But it ain't a path. It ain't anything to be interested about. I definitely wouldn't be taking no Greenies near the cliff." I frowned. "You don't think no one's died off that cliff?" I frowned even harsher, my eyes widening. That might have been why Minho was reluctant to mention it, I guessed.

"What's down there? Off the cliff?"

"Nothing," Minho shrugged. "Blackness? A void? I dunno. It's just a cliff, Anna."

"Well, it's got to have a bottom, right?"

"Does it?"

"Can I check it out? Tomorrow, maybe?"

"We can't, even if I wanted to let you. That section'll be closed tomorrow."

"What do you mean?" I inquired. "Is that because it changes?"

"Right. The Maze changes. There are eight different sections that open up on different days. There's a pattern. 7, 1, 5, 2, 6, 4, 8, 3."

"So that section that we ran through today?"

"That was section seven. It'll be open again in a few days. We can look at the cliff. But I promise you, it ain't nothing more than that."

"I feel like there's gotta be something more to it," I insisted.

"There isn't. I've gone for almost two years and it's always just been just a cliff. A cliff to nowhere. How can you investigate that any further?" I didn't respond. Minho shrugged. "Anyways, we'd better get some rest."

"A'ight. See you tomorrow, then, Minho."

"See ya, Anna."

As Minho closed and locked the map room door, I made my way to my bed, as Minho made his way to the Homestead, to his. It had been a long day.