𝐁𝐄𝐂𝐀𝐔𝐒𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐘𝐎𝐔 - 𝘔𝘈𝘡𝘌 𝘙𝘜𝘕𝘕𝘌𝘙

17 ~ 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙣𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙚

Newt

Six months. Six months went by, and nothing. No clues, but no bad news either. It was like we were floating peacefully through time. Every day was the same, except for the one day each month where a new Greenie came and we had a bonfire. I was also beginning to think that I had overreacted to Lottie becoming a Runner. Nothing had happened to her yet, which was a relief, but a small voice in the back of my head couldn't help muttering that it was only a matter of time.

Lottie left this morning with nothing but an apple for breakfast, and then sprinted out into the Maze with the group of Runners, just as she did every morning. I got to work; this week had been especially hard for the Track-hoes since all of the plants were ready to harvest at once.

We were all assigned to a different section of the Garden. Today, I was working on harvesting the cucumbers with a boy named Stan, which I was pretty happy about since cucumbers were my favorite to work with. We must have done a really good job tending to them this time around, because there were piles upon piles of cucumbers. Frypan better come up with something to do with them before they go bad.

In the afternoon, the Runners came back through the Door one by one. Minho came back sometime towards the end, and my eyebrows furrowed. Usually, Lottie and Minho would run back together, even if they didn't spend the whole day as partners, but today he was alone. I approached him as soon as he came back from the Map Room and asked, "Did you see Lottie on your way back?"

He shook his head. "I waited for her at our usual meeting place and she didn't come," he said as if it was no big deal, but I could see that he was worried too. He would never admit it, but Lottie was like a sister to him. They'd definitely gotten closer in the months that they'd been running together. "I'm sure she's fine," Minho said. "You know how curious she is; she probably found something useless to examine." I folded my arms and went to watch the Door. Mitch and Julian joined me. I didn't have the patience to scold them for abandoning their work; I was too busy biting my fingernails down to nubs.

Lottie was so late, that the rest of the Gladers – even the ones who didn't like her much – were grouped around the Door, wondering where she was. Finally, as the sun slipped beneath the Maze wall, I heard a familiar crack, which signaled the closing of the Door. I grit my teeth. This couldn't be happening – not again. It had been months and months since someone had been trapped in the Maze; Why now? Why her?

Waves of horror washed over me, sending goosebumps up my arms even though it wasn't cold. The others were talking, but I couldn't hear over the rushing of my ears. The bit of my mind that wasn't panicking was wondering why I was acting like this. There had been people locked out of the Glade before, and they'd died. I had been horrified, but not like this. I felt as if I might faint.

One voice was able to get through the rushing in my ears: Alby said from beside me, "There she is!"

My head snapped up, and sure enough, I saw a small figure with brown hair sprinting down the corridor towards us. My relief turned quickly to terror yet again. Was she going to make it in time? The Door was halfway closed, and she was halfway down the corridor.

Come on.

She squeezed through the Door, and it snapped shut behind her. She immediately fell to the ground and onto her back, clutching a stitch in her side as she tried to catch her breath. The strands of hair that had come loose from her braid were sticking to her forehead with sweat.

I knelt next to her. Alby, Mitch, and Julian joined me, and the rest of the Gladers crowded around us.

"Where were you?" I asked forcefully, angry now that she wasn't in danger anymore. "Why were you late? You have a watch, didn't you see what time it was?" I pointed to her wrist at the digital watch strapped there. She'd been given one when she was made a Runner, exactly for the purpose of making it back to the Glade in time.