From The WICKED Start | A Maze Runner Story (English Version)

1. The stranger

"Have you made up the beds yet?"
A voice tore me out of my thoughts - it belonged to my colleague, or fellow prisoner, or whatever you want to call it. I sat up on my chair, where I had been sitting dreamily until just now, watching the children playing.
"Yes, I did. And I've already set the tables too," I replied.
"Very good."
Rachel sat down next to me and also looked at the 24 children who were playing lightheartedly in the bright room. 24 children, nothing more. The only 24 children between 2 and 10 years old in the entire protected zone.
I tugged at my white coat and looked down at myself. W.C.K.D. That was all that was written on the left side of the coat. On the other side was my name tag. Anna. Would the day ever come when I would not be able to remember him either?
Rachel also wore a smock like this, whereas the children wore T-shirts with "Property of W.C.K.D" written on the back. How good that they had no idea what that meant.
It was not the first time I thought about it. I actually did it every day, whenever I wasn't under stress. And I knew that Rachel felt the same way. She was also anything but happy with what we were doing here. What did they call it? Saving humanity, or what's left of it. A huge percentage already dead or unpredictable from the "flare" - a virus that either killed you or made you a "crank". No idea what was less evil.
Actually, we were not allowed to think about it at all or even feel sympathy for it. That's why we never talked about it, but we both knew that the other one felt the same way. And somehow that felt good.
These children would never live a normal life, just like Rachel and I never did. As young children handed over to WICKED by our parents with the intention of saving us, we had grown up just like these children - watched, locked up and never free.
I could hardly remember my parents at all, I had been far too small for that when they brought me to WICKED. And that was my world now. Inside a building in which I had grown up myself, watching other children so that they could be used as test objects to save a humanity that had long been lost.
My nights and the little free time I had were spent in a side wing where I shared a room with my best friend Gally. I didn't have many more friends here either, except perhaps Rachel, who avoided contact with me outside working hours, knowing how Gally felt about WICKED without making a secret of it. She was probably afraid of getting involved in something - as I have done far too often. She also hung around all the time with a boy called Aris, who I didn't have much to do with. He was kind of creepy, because he hardly talked to people and was strange in other ways.
Then there were Minho and Thomas, the former was a test person, just like Gally and me. Thomas on the other hand was a full member of WICKED. Together with Teresa, a girl I had hardly ever talked to before, because she didn't think it was necessary to associate with ordinary mortals like us, he watched the test persons in the maze. But unlike her, he was certainly not behind what was happening there.
Our friends, those we had grown up with, were sent in there. We were immune to the virus, couldn't get sick, they said. At some point it would be our turn to go into one of these mazes, until then we had our jobs here.
I did not want to go into one of these mazes. There was nothing I was more afraid of than to be picked up one day myself. That's why I tried so hard at my job, to become perhaps indispensable - but I probably had false hopes.
If there was one thing I was even more afraid of, it was losing my last two real friends to the maze - Gally and Minho. Secretly I knew there was nothing I could do about it, but the thought of losing Gally, with whom I had spent my whole life here, hurt so much that I couldn't bear it.
"Are you lazing around?" A harsh voice sounded across the room.
Everyone, including the children, stopped immediately. A man with greying hair and two soldiers had entered the room without us noticing anything.
I was on my feet immediately. "No, Mr. Janson, sir, we were waiting for dinner. We just sat down for a minute."
"So," he replied, looking at me from top to bottom. "Anyway, I want you to come with me, Anna, I have something to talk to you about."
They're coming for me now.
That was all that went through my mind.
They're coming for me and I'll never see my friends again. I won't even know they exist.
I nodded silently to Rachel, who stared at me with eyes wide open in horror as if she was seeing me for the last time, and followed Janson. My thoughts turned and all I could think of was Gally. He wouldn't get along without me, it wouldn't take a week and he would catch a bullet for behaving impossibly.
Would I be able to say goodbye? Nick and Alby had not done it and they had been two good friends to me as well.
Janson and the two masked men led me to the lift and then deep down into the main building. I felt more and more uncomfortable, on the other hand I had always thought that such a transfer would be different. I knew that the memory chambers were in another building, because that was where the surveillance rooms of the maze were and that was where Thomas worked.
Where are they taking me?
At some point we seemed to have reached our destination, because after an endless white corridor Janson turned right and stopped in front of a door. He opened it with his ID and I followed him in unsteadily. Inside I was presented with the sight of a blond boy who was either dead or unconscious.
"What...?" I began.
But Janson interrupted me. "What you see here is our newest subject. The scheduled transfer date is one month from Wednesday next week. Before then, we will send your roommate up there. I'll be glad when he's finally gone, he has caused us problems far too often. Let them in there deal with him. - I want you to take care of this one, he could be important. He's not immune, it's damn rare at that age. We need him for tests, you understand. He'll stay with you when the other one's gone. Take care of him, nothing else would be to your advantage."
He looked at me expectantly, but I couldn't say anything, couldn't even nod. I just stood there staring at him.
Gally.
They would take Gally away from me. They would take him away from me and just replace him with another one in our room.
They would take Gally. And I would lose everything.
In that brief moment before Janson grabbed me by the shoulders and started shaking me, I saw my past pass by my mind's eye. Gally and I there, where I was now looking after the children myself, Gally and I moving into our room, Gally and I lying next to each other every evening, staring at the ceiling and laughing, crying or just keeping silent.
A tear rolled down my cheek unnoticed as Janson shook me roughly.
"...Anna, do you hear me? I want you to take care of this boy as soon as he is awake, do you understand? You will make up a bed for him for the next three days, then he will stay with you until he is delivered, understand?"
"Yes, Mr. Janson, sir," I breathed and wiped the tear away. "I'll take care of him, of course, just as you wish."
At these words, Janson turned and left the room with the other two. I stayed behind with this unconscious boy and just stood there. I could not take my eyes off the door through which they had disappeared.
Gally.
I would soon lose him forever. In three days. Three days. I didn't know how I could stand it. No matter how quick-tempered and wild he was, he'd always looked after me the way I looked after him. He was like a brother to me. And I couldn't bear to lose him.
"Where... Where am I?"
I turned around slowly. The boy on the couch had woken up. He leaned on his forearms and looked at me with frizzy hair. I shook my head to get a clear thought. He looked at me totally confused and I couldn't help feeling sorry for him. Wherever he came from, it was certainly better than here. Here he would never be free again.
I went to him and helped him up.
"My name is Anna and you are here in the WICKED Tower. Outside, the world is literally coming to an end. They have brought you here, perhaps to save humanity. Sounds crazy, right? What's your name?" I tried to be nice to him. I felt really sorry for him.
"I just... My name is Newt. Where's my sister?"
Sister? Janson had not spoken of yet another non-Immune. So she was immune for sure, and like all the other immune who came to WICKED as a teenager, she was already locked away. Waiting to get into the maze too, sometime.
"I don't know. But she is certainly well up. Do not worry. How are you, Newt?" I tried to calm him down.
"I don't know, I think I am fine. I am tired and have a headache. It's like someone hit me."
That's not so far-fetched.
"You should lie down. On a real mattress. Come on."
I used it to get him off the cot and out of the room, into another room with a temporary bed. He smiled at me gratefully as he lay down on it and I sat down next to him.
Nice boy, I thought, while I handed him some bread and water.
As he ate I watched him and noticed that he looked good. If you take away the dark circles under his eyes and the dirty face, he was even really handsome with his blond hair and brown eyes. And as I looked at him, I even forgot Gally for a moment.
Where do these thoughts come from?
I did not know. But something about this boy told me that it had to be the way it came to be, that our fate was predetermined and that if we submitted to it we might one day be free after all. Something about this boy changed something in me. Something that I had never felt in my whole life was stirring within me.
Newt gave me hope.