Different | The Maze Runner / Newt ¹ ✓

{2.0}

Disclaimer:

I do not own The Maze Runner. The fact that the first thing I thought of when typing "{2.0}" was Justin Bieber: My World 2.0 should explain why

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A half-hour passed without any of us moving. I sat against the wall next to Minho, who was playing with his knife, twirling it between his fingers.

It only took about ten minutes after our stunt with the Grievers for the reality to sink in. As I hugged my knees to my chest, I buried my face in them and blinked rapidly to get rid of the tears of shock threatening to spill out. I wouldn't let them fall. I had to be strong for both Minho and Thomas, who had stopped crying and was now leaning over the Cliff and investigating it.

He rolled onto his back and groaned in agony. I couldn't blame him. I was extremely sore also, and sitting in that curled-up position probably wasn't doing a thing to help my muscles. However, it also hurt to move, so I couldn't exactly win in that situation.

Thomas looked over at us. "I can't believe we're still alive."

Minho didn't respond, he only nodded with a face that was expressionless.

"Are there any more of them?" Thomas asked. "Did we just kill them all?"

Minho snorted. "Somehow we made it to sunrise, or we would've had ten more on our butts before long." He shifted, wincing and groaning. "I can't believe it. Seriously. We made it through the whole night— never been done before."

I nudged him, feeling my bicep ache and stretch as I did so. "See, Minho? I told you to have a little faith."

"What did we do differently?" Thomas asked.

"I don't know," Minho replied. "It's kind of hard to ask a dead guy what he did wrong."

I shuddered. "Right..."

"Seems like they disappeared after they went over the edge or something," Thomas commented.

"Yeah," I agreed. "Something's off. We should've been able to watch them plummet down. Instead all I saw was open sky."

"That was kind of psycho. Couple of Gladers had a theory that other things had disappeared, but we proved them wrong. Look."

We watched as Minho picked up a rock and tossed it over the Cliff. Down it went, not disappearing until it got too small to see.

Thomas turned his back to Minho and I. "How does that prove them wrong?"

Minho shrugged. "Well, the rock didn't disappear, now did it?"

"Then what happened? There has to be some kind of explanation. There's an explanation for everything," I pointed out.

Minho only shrugged again. "Maybe they're magic. My head hurts too much to think about it."

Suddenly, Thomas sat up with a jolt. "We have to get back." He strained to get up onto his feet. "Gotta get Alby off the wall."

I was struck with the realization so hard that my head snapped up and I almost hit it against the wall. Then, upon seeing the confusion on Minho's face. I gave him a short explanation of what we did with Alby and how we got him onto the wall.

Minho looked down, sadness clouding his eyes. "No way he's still alive."

"How do you know? Come on." Thomas started limping back along the corridor.

"Because no one's ever made it..."

"Yeah, and we weren't supposed to make it, were we?" I used the wall to support myself as I stood, my thighs burning from all the running and then the lack of use. Briefly stretching them out, I flexed my cramped arms. "But here we are."

"Also, they've always been killed by the Grievers by the time you found them," Thomas added. "Alby was only stuck with one of those needles, right?"

Minho stood up and joined me and Thomas on the walk back to rescue our fellow Glader. "I don't know, I guess this has never happened before. A few guys have been stung with needles during the day. And those are the ones who got the Serum and went through the Changing. The poor shanks who got stuck out in the Maze all night weren't found until later— days later, sometimes, if at all. And all of them were killed in ways you don't wanna hear about."

I cringed. "I really don't want to."

"After what we just went through, I think I can imagine," Thomas said.

Minho looked up with surprise. "I think you just figured it out. We've been wrong— well, hopefully we've been wrong. Because no one who'd been stung and didn't make it back by sunset has ever survived, we just assumed that was the point of no return— when it's too late to get the Serum." He seemed really excited at his hypothesis.

I trailed behind the two, the last to turn all the corridors and sometimes even finding myself up to ten feet behind, especially when Minho's pace sped up. It was like they didn't even notice I was there anymore. It was like they didn't care. But my exhausted body had had enough, so I began to rely on the sounds of their voices to get my way back to the Glade instead of trying to catch up.

Thomas asked question after question about the origins of the names and where the Serum came from, and this time Minho actually gave him answers. Maybe it was just because he was happy to still be breathing.

Half listening to their conversations, I almost lost the two boys when I didn't realize they had sped up even more.

"Hey!" I shouted, running to catch up, my legs and lungs screaming in protest. "Slow down!"

At first, I thought they had heard me when they slowed, but then I realized they were panting hard already and had only done so because their bodies were too tired.

Suddenly, I heard this weird crunching noise behind me. It sounded ten feet away. Five. Directly behind me.

"Guys," I said shakily. Minho and Thomas turned the corner and I jogged to catch up. "Guys! I think there's—"

I was cut off by something sharp digging deep into my back. I let out a piercing scream as my legs gave out and I landed hard on the ground, pain washing over every inch of my body. Colors swarmed my vision, things blended together and I couldn't see clearly. Maybe I was still screaming. I didn't know. My skull had to be splitting in two. My whole body felt like every bone was on fire. I wanted to throw up, but my stomach was empty and my insides felt like they had been microwaved. I was positive I was dying.

"Oh my God." Was that Minho? "Oh my God. Newt, she's stung. She's stung!"

"What?" The voice sounded incredibly panicked. 

"Impossible. Where's the Griever?" I thought that was Gally.

"I don't see anything." Thomas. "She was around the corner. I don't know—"

"Stop!" I cried out. The pitches of their voices kept changing, sometimes being almost mute and others loud as a megaphone right beside my ear, making my head pound even more. "Stop..."

Someone kneeled over me, then another. My arms and legs started to be lifted but another person shoved the others away. Out of my distorted vision I could barely make out Newt's face. He lifted me up and ran with me in his arms. I could feel his limp.

Wait. Newt? Did we make it?

"We...made it...." My voice was hardly recognizable, or maybe that was because of my strange hearing. I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure of anything. My brain was mush. The pain took over and I let out another agonized scream again, wanting it all to be over. Please just let it be over.

And then my eyes rolled into the back of my head, and everything went black.

gif is minho and thomas walking through the maze

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im in a v bad mood rn so i apologize for its shortness and crappy writing. also don't think i wrote this because i got bored and didn't know what else to do. the next chapter(s) will explain everything.

dedicated to escapethelabyrinth bc steph you are bae

~kristyn