Mystical, Magical, Mysterial (The Maze Runner Fanfiction)

Chapter 1

        Her eyes opened and revealed to her a brightly lit room. She was sat down on the metal floor and her head rested against the cushioned wall. Raising up her hands, she inspected the foreign parts as if she had never seen the limbs before.

        Have I seen these hands before now?

        She could move them and feel what they felt, but she couldn’t think of them as a part of her; like a soldier whose legs had been amputated in the war, they were like ghosts to her, phantoms. Her eyes still couldn’t adjust to the brightness, having been in the darkness for so long—

        Was I in the darkness? Have I been sitting here for hours?

        She licked her dry lips and found herself yearning for water as the moisture on her tongue disappeared; the walls began to close in on her and her air began to clog up her throat. She squeezed her eyes closed and covered her ears with her fists, crawling into the corner and hunching over.

        “Help me!” Her voice is hoarse—something to be expected since she had been sitting there for who knows how long—and it hurt her throat. She chews on her bottom lip and cuts it, the salty, rusty taste of blood tickling her tastebuds. The deafening silence answers her plea for help.

        The whir of machinery from outside the metal box creeps into her soul, the ghostly noise like nails on a chalkboard. The movement of the box was smooth but it turned her stomach sick with the sensation of nausea. A sweet floral scent filled the room and enticed her with the lure of the outside, but it made her mouth fill with bile.

        She thought that tears would be pricking at her eyes, that she would have already been sobbing and crying for someone to save her… 

 Her eyes were dry.

        “My name is Alexandra,” her soft voice was unlike the hoarse cry that had echoed through the room before: sweet but firm. She knew that was her name, she could feel it in her bones. She knew not of how she got the name or whom she had gotten it from, but she knew it all the same.

        Alexandra’s—a mouthful if she said so herself—mind cleared all of a sudden,  letting her observe her situation without breaking down into hysterics. She had thought about her situation but couldn’t fathom how she could have landed herself in that kind of situation, there was simply no way: how could she not have any memory of her past whatsoever?

        She pictured leaves falling from a tree, snow coating the earth like a snowy blanket, waves crashing against the coast, the sensation of water flowing down her throat, the sun burning into her skin, flickering candles creating long, abstract shadows, lying on a flowery meadow with soft petals petting her cheek… Her mind worked, it functioned without any flaws and she knew she had knowledge in her, facts, pictures…

        Yet her memory slithered away like a snake resisting captured, making her brain hurt when she tried to retrieve it. She didn’t even know her last name. Alexandra focused on this now, seeing faces, places, conversations taking place, but none giving her any sense of recognition whatsoever. Gruesome smiles replaced the faces and it scared her like nothing else could.

        She felt the box moving, but whether it moved up or down she did not know. The smoothness of it’s ascent—or descent—made it feel like it hardly moved at all. She realised that the floral scent had been coming from the cushions that lined the walls, smelling like fresh blooms that blossomed in Spring; it had disgusted her at first but her nose had grown immune to it. It seemed like an eternity had passed since she had awoken in this fancily decorated cage, but she knew that not that much time had gone by.

        Her fear and hysterics had disappeared, only to be replaced with a numbing curiosity that she found she could not quench without answers to her millions of questions. Where was she? Who put her there? Why was she there? Why her? 

        She shut her eyes once more, before she felt the box slow, teeter to a halt, than freeze. There was no more movement, no more whirring, only silence. A minute passed, two, three… In the time it took for her eyes to close to the moment the box stopped it’s movement, a slit had formed on one of the walls: something that her brain connected to a door. The cushions had disappeared from that wall and there seemed to be light seeping through it. She stood up on wobbly legs and tried to claw it open, prying at it with her fingernails and banging on it with all her might. 

        “Hello?” She shouted through the opening, trying to find a way to see through it as she did. The gap between the two doors was cold, which could only mean that the world outside was cold as well. She pressed her face against it, relishing in the feel of cold metal on her overheated skin. 

        “Someone…save…me!” every syllable ripped her throat raw, rendering her speechless for a few moments. She pounded on the door for a few minutes but gave up soon after, knowing that her efforts were futile. 

        She was so caught up in the miraculousness of the doors that she didn’t even notice the four buttons that had appeared on the wall beside the doors. They were in a small indentation in the metal wall, so a seamless panel must have slid open to reveal it. 

        There were symbols on each of the buttons, none exactly like the other. One bore a white swirl that seemed to be endless, drawing her in like a whirlpool. Another had an orange flame on it, and it looked like it was flickering. On the far left there was a brownish lump of what looked like dirt. On the bottom right there was a blue diagram of a single drop of water, and it looked so lifelike that it appeared to be moving. Tales of the four elements filled her mind, stories and legends and fairytales… No memories of how she had learnt them though…

        She stared at the swirl once more and found herself entranced by it; her eyes followed it as it swirled around like a hypnotist’s pendulum. She could swear that it moved.

        The centre of it seemed endless, like a star turned inside out: a black hole sucking up all lifeforms. She hadn’t blinked for a few minutes but she didn’t care, she just couldn’t peel her eyes away. Then, as if she had lost all control over herself, she pushed on the centre of the white swirl

        The lights turned off and she was plunged into darkness. She felt more confused than she had ever been in this whole thing.  

        What have I done?

        Then pain blossomed throughout her body and her brain went blank, unable to process anything but the searing agony. She must have screamed, how could she not? Or perhaps the pain was enough for her to not make that connection. She was sure that she felt a sharp pinprick on her neck, but it went as fast as it came. Red hot fire flowed through her tortured veins and her eyes brimmed with the tears that refused to come before.

        Her fingers clutched at the ground for support, but found none, nearly succumbing to unconsciousness. Her lips were dry and her tongue felt raw, as if she had been biting on it. Then she let out a mighty yell as she fell into the pit of darkness. 

         The lights came back on but her eyes were searing hot, it felt as if she had an extremely high fever. Her whole body was numb and her mouth sagged open: she had not enough strength to keep it closed. Her eyes… Her eyes… They felt different, in a way, like someone had plucked them out and replaced them with others. It was strange, but not too uncomfortable.

        As soon as she was fully upright, she heard the whirring of machinery in action. The doors. She looked towards them, eager to see what lay on the other side. Perhaps a winter forest, or maybe a burning desert, or even a sunny lagoon…

        She turned towards them, and met the eyes of at least a hundred boys and girls with wide eyes and slack jaws.