Escaping the Maze

Chapter 11

I can't believe it. I've been dismissed from my job, whatever that means. I'm sure they just don't want to be around me.
I guess I'll just sit in the deadheads until Rachel comes back, I have to talk to her.
Around midday I finally walk out of the deadheads, heading to Mabel's kitchen. Mabel hands me food, she doesn't say anything, doesn't smile at me like usual, she ignores me and moves onto the next glader.
Do they all believe Kiarra's words? They think I sent them here, that I helped. They're not wrong.
I walk to the homestead, ready to confront Baylor.
"What're you doing here. I told you you're not working today, go away Aris. You're not wanted here." She says while sitting in the medjack supply room on the top floor of the homestead.
"Please Baylor. I know I helped send you here, I didn't have a choice. Why would I send myself into this maze? Why would I send all you innocent people into the maze? You have to believe me, I was forced." I say, begging for her to forgive me.
"It's not that I'm mad about. We've already talked about that; I know you're not that kind of person. It's something else." She says, sorting a stack of papers into four piles.
"I don't know what I did wrong. I'm sorry for whatever it is, but I can't fix something, if I don't know what it it." I say, looking at her.
"You ignored us, didn't help with Rachel, didn't help around the Glade. You sat near the east wall and ignored the world. You left us all with nothing, Rachel won't talk to you when she gets back, nobody wants to talk to you right now. You're the only one with answers, it won't help if you don't give them to us." Baylor says, freezing with her hand midway to a pile with a piece of paper in it.
"I'm sorry. I don't know why we're here, why we don't remember anything. I only know parts." I say, and I move towards Baylor. "I'm so sorry."
"I forgive you. I know how hard pressure and loss can be, I'm the one who should be saying sorry." She says, and stands up to give me a hug.
We break apart when we hear shouting. That's when I notice; the doors should be closed by now.
"The doors aren't closing." I say, my face paling.
"They should've been closed a whole ago. Why aren't they closing?" Baylor says, her voice panicked.
"I don't know, let's go see the runners." I say, and we sprint out of the homestead.
There's a meeting in the middle of the Glade beside the closed doors of the box, and Harriet is standing on the doors, talking to the people crowded around, listening closely for instructions in these dire times.
"Calm down everyone! I know, this isn't a time to be calm because the doors aren't closing. But all we can do is huddle in the homestead and hope the grievers don't come into the Glade." Harriet says, "and arm ourselves."
Later, every glader has one or two weapons, and everyone is packed into the homestead, nobody beyond the homestead walls.
We all wait silently, for the grievers to come, basically awaiting out deaths.
About an hour later, the clicking and whirring comes.
Click, whirr, click, whirr.
All the girls panic, shouting and scrambling the middle, away from the walls.
"Rachel." I say, sitting upstairs, in the same room as Rachel, but we haven't exchanged a word yet. "I'm sorry."
"Okay." Is all she says, not even turning to face me.
"Please, don't ignore me. I need you." I say, grabbing her hand.
"I need you too. But if you're not going to be there for me, I can't be there for you." She says, and the words sting. I pull her into my lap, wrapping my arms around her.
"I'm so sorry how I ignored you yesterday, I was caught up in life, in dizziness and complications. I couldn't think then. I tried to push everyone away, to clear my mind. I was wrong to do that, I'm trying to take it all back." I say, resting my chin on top of her head. "Please forgive me, I need you to be there, especially when times are hard like this. Please."
She pulls herself out of my arms, and I'm afraid I've done something wrong, that I went too far. But then she turns around and kisses me.
"I forgive you. I know these are hard times. And I need you there." She says, smiling.
"Ew. You can do that somewhere else. We kind of have a pretty bad situation here. The grievers are almost to the homestead." Olivia says, raising her eyebrows at us.
"Wha-" I start, but I hear a crash and an assortment of screams downstairs, I'm pretty sure a griever arm just broke through the wall.
"DARLENE!" I hear someone screech downstairs, and I see the grievers retreating, one screaming person between all their needles and appendages. That person I'm guessing is Darlene, the unlucky glader.
"Why did they only take one?" Rachel asks, thinking most likely the same thing as me, they could've killed us all easily, yet they only took away one person. What does that mean for all the rest of us?
I hear a scream, instead coming from Sonya, in the bed in the same room.
"Sonya?" I ask, when she sits up and looks around.
"You." She says, pointing at me and Rachel. "You did out us here. But you can also get us out." She says, her eyes glassy.
"W-what do you mean?" Rachel stutters, and she looks at me.
I tell everyone in the room about our time before the Glade, how we were forced to help create this maze, wipe their memories, and send them in here. Then how we had to be sent in her, memories a blank as well.
"You don't understand. You don't want to leave this place. It's better to die." Sonya says, her eyes black and seemingly lifeless.
"We have to get out, we find a way out or be killed by grievers." Olivia says, sounding exasperated.
"Then we'll die. You don't want to go back. Trust me. You don't want to see the world." Sonya says, and describes things she saw in the changing.
The world was hit by sun flares, killing most of the population, the ones who survived weren't as lucky. A disease called the flare spread rapidly, eating the minds of all victims. The flare made you go crazy, made you a walking zombie until eventually you died from it, crazy. The outside world didn't sound much better than the maze, but we have to try to get out. We might be able to survive still.
"The doors won't close, the grievers can kill all of us at will." Olivia says, pointing out the obvious but grim truth.
"Better than facing the ruins of a world we never knew." Sonya says, a tear slipping silently down her cheek.
"We have to try. We have to face the grievers." Rachel says, and I hug her.
"They're going to keep coming back, taking one of us each night until we're all dead."