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

14. Names on the wall

By the time we reached our room, Newt had jumped out of the air shaft and landed on my bed before he had stretched out his arms to help me down. He had put me down on the bed and we had looked at each other for a long time, with nobody saying anything.
Meanwhile we sat together on my bed and leaned against the wall, above us the flap was closed again and the plan was hidden behind it. It was already 6 o'clock and of course it was not worthwhile to sleep any more. But I was also sure that after that night we both would not have been able to sleep anyway.
First we had found Newt's sister, then we had found a way up to the roof and there we saw the most beautiful thing I could imagine - the sunrise. The maze had impressed and intimidated us both so much that we first had to deal with it silently. That we were almost been seen as well in the back of the queue.
At some point, Newt broke the silence, when I had already thought about whether we shouldn't go to breakfast to distract ourselves.
"It was very nice with you up there. That was by far the most wonderful sunrise I've seen and I'm sure it was because of you." Now he looked at me from the side and I felt a smile spread across my face.
"I thought it was very beautiful, too. But I am also quite shocked by what we saw. And... I'm glad your sister is all right."
I took his hand. He intertwined his fingers with mine and kissed the back of my hand.
"And I'm glad you were with me. It really means a lot to me."
We were silent again and I leaned against him with my head on his shoulder.
"Newt?" I then asked. "Can we go back up there? Soon?"
He nodded. "With pleasure."
I closed my eyes for a moment and felt that deep affection for him again. This sunrise had meant more to me than he could have imagined. It was as if this experience had connected us so much, at least for me, that in that second I was sure I would never forget it. No matter how many times they would put me in that memory chamber, they would never be able to erase it. I just knew it.
As if we were thinking the same thing, he whispered: "I will never forget that. You and me on the roof, I'll always remember that."
I raised my head and looked directly at him. When our eyes met and his eyes completely captivated me again, I closed mine and kissed him gently.
"I love you," I whispered between two kisses.
"And I love you."

After we both freshened up, we went out for breakfast. I hadn't looked at the clock any more, but I knew we were late, because the hall was empty except for a few isolated young people. Even at our table there was only Zart sitting around us, eating our food.
"Well, overslept, too?" he asked as we sat down with him.
"Something like that," Newt replied and grinned at him.
Zart thought he understood and laughed dirty, winking at us and then getting up and still leaving laughing. I looked reproachfully at Newt, but then had to laugh myself when he looked back, innocent as a puppy.
"Come on, we'd better hurry, too, the other two are definitely waiting for us."
Newt nodded and we ate up quickly before heading off to the labs. But before we even reached the lift I stopped. A thought had just occurred to me that had somehow been going through my mind all along, actually since I started working with the children three years ago.
It was not right what we were doing here. And by that I didn't just mean the tests on the older subjects in the maze, but everything. WICKED kept children here, most of whom did not even know what the sky looked like and that there was a world outside this building that had once been beautiful. Yes, we protected them from falling victim to a crank and yes, it was of course important to find a cure for those who were not immune in case they were infected by the flare - I was thinking of Newt in particular. Nevertheless, this was not right. And at that moment I knew that more than ever before. And I also knew that I could not leave without doing something about it. I knew that there were people out there who were fighting for the freedom of these children and also of us. And even though I knew that it would not be possible to save them all, at least not yet, I was sure that it would be possible to get 24 children out of here. I didn't know why I was so sure of this at that moment, after all, I only knew about these people through one or two conversations that Gally and I had overheard, but I knew that I had to find a way to contact them and save the children. Because if I didn't, nobody would do it. I also knew that I wouldn't be here much longer. Finally, Teresa and I had a plan. That meant I didn't have much time.
But didn't that somehow also mean that I had nothing to lose anyway?
"Anna? Hey, what's wrong? Are you alive?!"
I was startled out of my thoughts and looked into Newt's eyes.
"Yeah... Yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine."
"You were just standing there staring into space as if you were paralyzed or something," he said and looked at me suspiciously. "There's something about you."
"No, everything's fine. I just hardly slept, remember?"
He nodded and left it at that, even though I could tell he didn't believe me. But I wouldn't tell him about my thoughts. I wouldn't involve him in that. After all, I would break about 20 rules to find out something about these people on my own and then contact them if I managed not to get caught first. Teresa would certainly have been able to tell me exactly what rules I would break and explain them to me.
This thought made me smile.

We reached surveillance lab 1 on the double, as my short interruption had of course taken up a lot of time. Newt was still suspicious, but he hadn't said anything, which I was very happy about and gave me hope that he wouldn't ask about it later.
Teresa and Thomas both turned around when we came in and Teresa took off her headset and raised one eyebrow.
"Where have you been?" she asked sternly. "You're late."
"Sorry, we... overslept."
Newt was a little out of breath, so no one but me noticed that he hesitated with our alibi.
We quickly sat down in our chairs and took our headsets. It had become my job to keep a close eye on Gally, Fry Pan and Alby without us really talking about it. I had my eyes focused on the screens in front of me and watched as Gally built a second hut, Fry Pan was already preparing lunch and Alby was standing together with Nick and George at a somewhat remote spot on the wall of the maze. At first I didn't know what they were doing there, but relatively quickly I realised that they had a knife and a stone with them and seemed to carve something into the wall.
"Hey, I've got something here," I noticed and threw the enlarged picture of the wall onto the big screen above us.
"What are they doing there?" Newt asked and took off his headset.
"They're carving something into the wall."
Thomas had also taken off his headphones. On his screen I could see two boys doing the gardening, which he was watching.
"But what?" Teresa asked and I zoomed in even closer.
Now you could read what they were writing.

Alby. George. Nick.

They had carved their names on the wall as if they wanted to be immortalised there. Wow.
I was kind of taken by the idea. When the three boys split up to get the others, my heart warmed as they all carved their names into the stone, one by one. Gally was after one of the gardeners and carved his name a bit roughly but still neatly into the wall, and I recognised his writing immediately.
After everyone had finished, they stood in a semicircle around the wall and kept silent, as if none of them, not even Nick, knew what to say. At that moment it was as if an invisible ribbon was joining them all together. Every single one, even Gally. And somehow I knew that this was the moment when he had become an integral part of the group. The others had accepted him and there would be no more of those strange moments where he was the outsider.
"We have called you together so that we can all immortalise ourselves here together. Because we are a family and we must stick together," Alby began. "But at the same time, we also want to discuss something with you. We have reached a final conclusion about the maze. We have to start looking for an exit. We must try to get out of here somehow. So we thought about which of us would be most suitable to hold out long enough to explore the maze. And we decided George is going in."
"I'm the fastest of us and I dare myself to go out there. We have no idea exactly what's out there or how big it is, but there's only one way to find out."
The bystanders nodded silently and nobody knew what to say. I was sure that they knew it was guaranteed to be dangerous and that something might happen to George, but at the same time the desire for a way out was so great that they wanted to risk it.
"Okay, so then it's settled, George will go into the maze for the first time tomorrow. Fry, please prepare some food for him on the way, in case he stays in there longer than noon."
Nick now looked at Fry Pan. He just nodded. Even he, who always had a joke up his sleeve, didn't really know what to say.
As the group of boys broke up and everyone went back to work, I took my eyes off the screen above us for the first time and looked around the room.
Newt had looked at the screen just like I had, but now he looked at me and smiled slightly. Thomas still stared up and looked thoughtful, as if he was worried. Teresa sat upright in her chair and seemed unimpressed by the spectacle and the decision that had just been made right before her eyes. She was already watching Nick and George chatting again.
I shook my head. I just couldn't figure her out, one moment she was helping me and I felt she could be on my side, but then she reacted like that again and I was horrified at how unsympathetic she was to the boys in the maze, knowing that George was putting himself in great danger if he went inside, not knowing that there were Grievers waiting for him.