Escaping the Maze

Chapter 6

I don't know what happens next. Something inside me just snaps when the doors close, and I run to the fissure in the wall and collapse. I go limp, hoping I could be out there too, to at least protect Rachel. But I'm on the other side of these walls, where it's safe. I wish we could trade spots.
"Aris! Are you okay?" Harriet asks, running to my side.
I just sit there limply, looking at the wall, silently.
"Hey, I know, Rachel meant something to you, but you have to move on." Harriet says, her eyes shining with unshed tears.
"I can't." I croak, my voice is scratchy and swelling up. I won't cry though, not here in front of everyone.
"Yes you can." I hear another gentle voice beside me, and it's Baylor, she reaches out and turns my head towards her.
"You have to forget." She says softly. "It doesn't help, to dwell on the past. Live and love in the present. You have to move on."
"I-I can't. You don't understand, she was there before the maze. She was my best friend, she was with me ever since the maze was created. W-we helped create it." I say, my head falling as I have a flashback.

Are you focused? I hear Rachel's voice in my mind. You need to be, just do what they say, it'll be better for both of us.
"Aris! Listen! You might be the savior or downfall of WICKED! We can't let that happen. So listen up!" A woman says a little too loudly in front of me, and I afford a quick glance over at Rachel. She's sitting with her back straight, and her hands are twisted tightly. If you were to look at her from another person's perspective, it would seem nice and attentive listening. But I know better, she's on edge, and she is trying to be focused.
And then Rachel and I recite a long seemingly-memorized thing about WICKED and sun flares and stuff in unison.
The woman rolls her eyes and leaves, leaving us alone. Rachel glances up towards the security camera in the top corner of the room.
She walks over and snaps the camera off, smashing the lens with a pen. Now that it's broken, we can talk.
"Listen Aris, I'm being sent into the maze in four days. You can't stop this so please don't try." Rachel says, letting out a large breath.
"Rach, maybe somehow I can convince them, I mean we helped build the maze and the thing with the subjects... Maybe-" I protest, but she cuts me off.
"No. We can't go against this. Maybe we can save some people in the Glade. I know it'll be hard and we won't even remember this, but I love you." She kisses me lightly on the lips and leaves the room.

"What?! You helped create the maze? You lying slinthead. We should've kept you in the slammer, even I trusted you." Baylor says, a confused and hurt expression on her face.
"No-Baylor. It's not like that. They forced us to." I say, pleading with her.
"Yeah, sure. Now you start telling me this bull." She says, rolling her eyes.
"I had no choice. WICKED was controlling me and Rachel. They made us do what they wanted, they made us do everything. It's not our fault, they would've killed us if we'd done anything to disrupt their plans. I'm sorry. I'll take the blame, go ahead, punch me, cut me, throw a bloody brick at my head if you please. You just have to believe me." I say, closing my eyes.
"I believe you." I hear a small voice from beside me. I open my eyes and turn my head to see Willow sitting beside me.
"Thanks, Willow. But I'm afraid it doesn't matter if others don't." I say, looking pointedly at Baylor.
"No, I believe you. But why would you let them send you into this nightmare? If you helped build it, why would you go in it?"
"Same as I told you-I didn't have a choice."
"Oh." She says, dropping beside me. "I'm sorry, it's just that...we're stuck in this bloody maze, and we can't find a way out. In on the verge of snapping at any moment." Baylor says, dropping her head into her hands.
"Yeah, we all feel like that." Willow says, grabbing my hand and absentmindedly playing with my fingers.
"It sucks, like before, when..." I choke up, not able to say it. "You know what happened, I almost burst out crying and screamed for years all at the same time." I close my eyes, and try to banish the image of Rachel looking up, fear evident in her eyes. Those beautiful grey eyes that I never had the chance to say what I wanted to.
"You loved her, didn't you?" Willow asks quietly.
"Yes, I did, and I never got to tell her." I say, holding back the tears that burn behind my eyes.
"Maybe she'll survive, you never know, she was never one to quit, always strong."
Baylor says, reassuring herself just as much as she was me, I'm sure.
"I hope so."
•••
Later that night, I lay in bed, unable to sleep, just thinking about Rachel stuck out in the maze, fighting for her life. How could I leave her like that? How could she have gotten in the maze? She's a medjack, maybe a too nice medjack who just had to run into the maze to save someone, then get caught herself.
I fall into a half sleep, not helping with tiredness, not helping really at all. "We won't even remember this." I think of Rachel kissing me, and saying that. But yes, I remember, even though I feel like I shouldn't. I remember feeling like nothing was wrong and that I could stay happy like that forever. But that hopeful side that always saw the bright side of things was repeatedly crushed by common sense.
I can't stop thinking if what Harriet told me: "no one ever survives a night in the maze." And that little tiny bit of hope that I cling onto shrinks to half that size, basically nothing now.
•••
When I wake up from the half sleep, I don't feel rested at all, it's like I pulled an all-nighter, and I just felt the weight of not sleeping crash into me.
I ask the nearest runner-Jasmine-what time it is, and she tells me ten minutes until the door opens. Then she tells me not to get my hopes up. I'm fixed on assuming she's dead, so the pain would hurt less. It's like putting up a shield to block a strike, only to have it still hurt a lot, only not as much as it would've if I hadn't thrown the shield up.
I grab a quick bite to eat and thrown on some sweat pants and a green shirt.
Two minutes until the door opens, I wait in front of it with Baylor on one side of me, and Willow on the other, grasping my hand tightly.
Harriet stands off in front of me to the right, and Sonya to my left, crouching.
"What if she doesn't make it?" A person behind me whispers to another, and I resist the urge to punch someone.
"Don't be so hopeful, stick. Nobody survives a night in the maze, and being her-well, she doesn't stand a chance that little weakling." Beth says right beside my ear, laughing.
I elbow her in the gut, satisfied by the painful grunt she gives.
Then I hear the grinding of the doors and nothing else matters in that moment.
Baylor grabs my upper arm, telling me that I will not run to the gap in the walls.
"Rachel?" Harriet calls when the gap is big enough for a small person to squeeze through.
Everyone waits and hold their breath, waiting for the moment of truth. I thought that watching Rachel being trapped in the maze was painful, what would it be like if she's dead in there? All that's left is her body? I shudder at the thought.
"Aris?" A small voice comes from the ever-growing gap in the walls.
The group that's watching collectively watches as a person emerges from the maze, carrying another slumped person in her arms.
Rachel survived a night in the maze.