The Truth Behind it All - MAZE RUNNER FAN FIC

Chapter One

All I can remember is eyes like green poison, a knife to my throat and a chill in the air before it was time. But I guess I should start from the beginning.

My name is Ethan Cartwright. I live in a place called the Glade, the centre of a giant maze unlike any other in existence. I live here with many other boys like me, boys with no memory of their past life, boys who have to fight for survival, boys who have no idea who they are or why they are here. I have been here for a few months now, but as each day passes, it is getting harder and harder to remember anything from when I first came here. Everyone here arrived the same way. In a metal box in the ground, an elevator with no lights, no doors and no buttons. Just 4 walls and a floor with a door on top. We all woke up with no memory. We remembered everything and nothing at the same time. We had no memory of who we were before waking up, no memory of our family (if we had one), no memory of anything. Some of us can remember having conversations with complete strangers or being taught to ride a bike, I am one of those lucky few, but the memories slip out of my hands like water ever so slightly every day until eventually I will forget completely. I am one of very few who remembers their whole name, I am extremely lucky.

Our leader is Alby, he has been here the longest but is very stern and balanced. Beside him is Newt, he is Alby's closest friend and one of my good friends as well. Chuck is the youngest here, a little plump boy around 12 years old. Thomas and Teresa are the newest here, we call them Greenies. Teresa has been in a coma since she got here. No one knows anything about her, but Tom and I are practically brothers, we look out for each other and take care of anyone who needs it. This place is crazy, everything is organised and we are surviving but, we have no idea who or what put us here or why. If there is one good thing about the Glade, it would be order. Without order, this whole civilisation would crash and burn.

The worst thing in this place, in my opinion, is the Grievers. Horrible creatures, half machine and half monster that could easily kill all of us if they could get past the gates. Lucky for us they can't. What they do to us is worse than death, death is quick and it's over in a relatively short amount of time, what they do to us is so much worse. They 'sting' us. It gives you symptoms worse than anything we could imagine, it gives the victim visions of their old life and who they were before they woke up in the Box, makes them die extremely slowly and painfully if we don't give them the antidote in time. Every single person who gets stung by a Griever is never the same after they go through the Changing. They become distant, solitary, aggressive and strange.

Everyone has a job here, everyone has a role they must complete every single day they spend here. Whether they are around the Slaughter House, a Runner or what, they have to fulfil and complete it. Me? I am a runner along with Tom, Minho and some others. Every day when the gates open, we run out into the maze and chart every path, every dead end, every turn, every passage before running back to the Glade before it gets dark and copying down every turn we took, the whole maze, trying to find a pattern in the moving walls and find a way out. We have been trying for a few years to find a pattern, clue, a solution to get out of this maze. It gives people hope, a reason to keep moving forward, a reason to keep living.