The First Glader (COMPLETED)

A Year Later

They won't tell you this, but for the next eleven months, once a month, they sent Gladers up two by two.

 All of them were boys. 

The society had developed a lot more, giving jobs to everyone with a designated wake up time and eating times. 

Alby is in charge, much changed from the boy who stubbornly asked questions I refused to answer. Frypan, Alby, Newt, and Minho are still the only ones who know about me.

 When the first pair of two showed up, I was in the Maze, and when I returned Newt warned me about them. We decided, once more started arriving, that since all the other Gladers were boys, that I could stay away from them. 

Because boys. Are. Annoying.

 I sleep in the back now, right next to the North Doors. I'm what they call a Runner, a person who runs into the Maze every day and then maps out the route.

 Minho is the 'Keeper' of the Runners. All that means is that he is the ambassador, talking for the Runners at Gatherings, or meetings. One of the four first boys brings me food every day, and I eat breakfast right away, take lunch into the Maze, and leave dinner at the hammock I sleep in.

 I bring all the stuff I need and no more. Every week when the Box comes up with supplies, it brings a crate of stuff for me, clothes and other things. 

Someone always sneaks that to me at night when they can't get caught. We know more about the Maze then ever. We've found the very edge, a cliff, but there seems to be no way out. We've found the Grievers can't be killed, and what the effects of being stung by one are. There's a serum that comes up in the Box, that you just inject with a syringe, and it looks painful. 

The Med-jacks, what we call doctors, are supposed to be with the stung 24/7, but everybody falls asleep. Which allows me to sneak in and look at the victims. It's awful. Their skin turns kind of blueish, transparent. All their veins turn black, especially visible. They have to be chained down to the bed, to keep them from running away or attacking someone. Guess how we figured that out for the first time. 

We also figured out that if we don't give them what a few people started calling the Grief Serum, they go crazy and die. And that no one can survive a night in the Maze. Being stung by a Griever makes you go through what is being called the Changing. That's what makes the people who are stung look like... that. 

Using maths we should've had about 26 Gladers, not including me. Counting up all the deaths and disappearances, we have about 19. Not good, right? 20 counting me, I guess. 

But that is 7 less then we're supposed to have.

 I know all of the Gladers' names, even though next to none know mine. They've made a pact to tell the next newbies, if they ask how we got here, that they woke up one day laying in the middle of the Glade. I s'pose I could reveal myself, it wouldn't do any harm, I don't think, but I've rather enjoyed my secret life. 

One of the Gladers almost found me once, an asshole named Gally. He was trudging through the woods, pouting about something as I have often seen him do, and he came right to my hammock. He was confused as to why there was a hammock there, so he looked around to see if there was anyone to use the hammock. Gally is not exactly quiet, so I hid when I heard him come. I hid, to be exact, at the top of a tree. He never once looked up. 

I did follow him back to the edge of the woods, watching as he told Alby about the hammock in the woods, watching Alby once again cover for me.

 I am forever thankful to the four who know my secret.

 Right now, this very second, I am in the Maze. The runners are known to stop only for a brief lunch, but I walk most of my routes. My section changes, of course, but it changes very often, and I can usually recreate the map I'm supposed to be making from memory. 

When it changes, however, it changes to one of two patterns. All the maps I've made look like the day before the day before. I don't know why we haven't given up yet on the mapping.

 If it's always the same, what is the point?

 Anyway, I hear the familiar clicking and whirring of a Griever. I've found that though they can climb, they're not very good at it and they prefer to stay on the ground. 

So I climb up in the ivy and wait. It turns the corner, and I get a good look (that I didn't want) of it. I shudder, imagining the needles poking into my skin. I don't make a noise or a movement, but somehow it sees me. I don't understand. The Grievers usually don't see me when I'm up here. But this one scuttles it's way up there wall and to me.

 I cut the ivy holding me up and drop, trying to steer myself away from the monster. But it swerves too quickly and gets a sting in on my ankle. The pain is almost unbearable, but I have to live, to make it back to the Glade. I drop to the ground, finally, and run. 

The Griever pursues me, an upgrade from the Creators improving it's speed enough for it to keep up with me. I check my watch while I run. I'm not going to make it. I'm too far out, I have only four minutes. I run as fast as I can and I see the Doors, and I have to make it, and I'm almost there, but they're not my doors, because all the Gladers are gathered there, not just the woods, and... The doors close. I'm dead. I'm trapped in the Maze, at night, with a Griever on my heels.