ACT I SCENE XX
ANDROMEDA

   CASSANDRA OPENED her eyes, yet again, to a blood-curdling scream. Seriously? Who was it this time?

She scrambled out of her hammock and fell to the ground with a loud grunt. Minho was already helping her stand on her feet, the both of them stumbling over each other with grogginess in the faint light. They finally stepped out of the tent, squinting out at the dark field. A few of the Gladers were already up and they were looking around in bewilderment. Newt spotted them from the distance and immediately headed their way.

Something didn't feel right but Cassandra couldn't put her finger on it just yet.

"The bloody sky is gone!" The blonde yelled, flailing his arms upwards. "And that scream wasn't you, was it, Cass?"

Cassandra shook her head and craned her neck upwards as she realised what was wrong. There was no light, no darkness, no stars. Nothing. There was just a flat alien grey all above them where the sky used to be. She gaped in astonishment and briefly thought that this would be exactly how the start of an apocalypse would look like.

"Must have been the other girl then, I'm gonna go check on her," Newt said before jogging towards the Homestead.

Minho glanced at his watch and touched Cassandra's elbow to get her attention. "Come on, it's almost wake-up anyway."

After grabbing Thomas for a quick breakfast and equipping him with running gear, the three of them went out into the Maze. Everything looked distorted in the dull grey light that haunted their every footstep. Cassandra wondered what was happening and thought about the other girl back in the Glade.

She took the lead instead, traversing the endless hallways and corridors until she skidded to an abrupt halt. Thomas bumped into her and she grabbed him before he could fall over. She pressed a finger to her lips urgently before he could open his mouth. It was the smell that tipped her off; that repulsive odour of burnt oil and decay. Minho crept around her to sneak a peak behind the wall before pulling back with a firm nod.

"It's just sitting there," he informed them, a glint of annoyance in his eyes. "Shuck piece of klunk."

"Sitting there?" Thomas repeated.

"Same as the one with Alby and the other one we saw that night in the Maze," Minho told him. "This is the only way to the next Sector though, so let's just wait it out. We can make a run for it to the Glade if it chases us."

Cassandra peered around the edge and started. "It's running away! I think it heard us."

"Shuck, let's go!" The Keeper sprinted after the retreating Griever.

Cassandra hurried after him with Thomas reluctantly on her heels. They ran down numerous corridors, barely catching sight of its tail as it rounded every turn ahead of them. Soon, they were jogging through the long familiar passageway that led towards the Cliff. The Griever skittered across the ground, flung itself beyond the chasm and disappeared. They stopped to stare in stupefaction, mouths hanging wide open.

"Whoa. That was weird," Cassandra finally said.

"Hey." Minho glanced at her. "This seem familiar to you? The notes from the hiding hole...the Griever that stung Alby. This ain't a coincidence."

They walked towards the empty schism and peered down at it. Cassandra suddenly felt an odd sense of vertigo and she walked forward without thought. Grasping at her head with a soft cry of pain, she stumbled to her knees. "Cass!" Thomas cried out, reaching out for her in panic.

"Wait, stop!" Minho told him quickly as he saw the glaze in her eyes. "She's in a trance. Don't touch her; just get ready to pull her back if she starts to fall."

The girl leaned over at the very edge of the precipice and gazed down. Thomas watched her, his heart beating in his throat and muscles coiled ready to grab her before she could fall.

"He went into the hole and disappeared," she said, her voice sounding far away. "The hole... it's our only way out, we need to get out."

He looked to Minho for an explanation. "Nick. The half shank. Went down the Box hole when he heard her say the same thing."

"It's our only way out," Cassandra went on. "They'll die but The End is here. Push. Open. Gone."

She stretched a trembling hand at the grey empty sky and her body started to lurch forwards. They grabbed her just in time and pulled her back. She fell to the ground with a rough jolt and cried out in surprise. Her eyes regained their clarity and she looked between them in confusion. "Ow, what happened?" she asked.

"Shuck, I can't believe it," Minho breathed out, a hand tugging at his hair. "Oh, my freaking God, how could we be so stupid?"

"Huh?" She shot him a look before Thomas repeated what she'd said in her trance. "Are you shucking kidding me?!"

"What?"

She exchanged glances with Minho before explaining to Thomas. "It's been right in front of our faces this entire time. This is the freaking hole!"

Cassandra suddenly stopped as a wave of dismay hit her. If they had figured this out sooner, Nick wouldn't have died. Her 'prophecies' had been leading them to this very realisation. The Grievers, those monstrosities that lurked in the shadows to terrorise them, were the clues they'd been searching for this entire time.

That was so messed up.

"Okay..." Thomas nodded slowly, placing his hands on his hips. "So the Grievers can escape through the Cliff. Maybe we can too?"

"There you go again with your death wish." Minho shook his head. "But this time, I think you're right. There must be something, like an optical illusion, hiding an exit or whatever."

There was a flurry of movement from the boy as he took off his pack and rummaged around in it for his notepad and pencil, then he started collecting pieces of rocks into a pile. Cassandra followed suit, ready to tackle their dilemma that had been nigh unsolvable for the past two years.

"Okay, let's get this right," Minho said. "I don't wanna be the one who messes up when the first shank jumps and falls to his death."

"That shank ought to be the Keeper of the Runners," Thomas said jokingly. "You'd better be holding onto one beauty of a rope."

"That's not funny." Cassandra narrowed her eyes at him.

"Yeah, yeah." Minho rolled his eyes. "Okay, let's take turns tossing them in. Cassie, I want you to sit right here and keep an eye on everything. If anything looks funny, I wanna know."

"Okay." She perched herself near the edge between the two boys, pencil poised at the ready over her paper.

They started throwing their rocks on the left side of the empty space, one after the other, in a tightly spaced line. It went on in rows; the chunks of stone soared through the air and plummeted with the pull of gravity. Each one continued to fall and fall until it was too far out of their sight. Cassandra tried to concentrate, but with every piece that fell, so did her confidence.

Then she blinked and Minho's rock disappeared.

"Whoa!" She rubbed her eyes. "Did you guys see that?"

"What the hell?" Minho frowned. "We've been throwing klunk over this for years and I've never seen anything disappear. Never."

"Yeah...actually, wait, maybe we blinked funny." Thomas gestured. "Throw another one in."

Minho took a larger stone and flung it at the exact same spot. Cassandra kept her eyes trained on it until it was swallowed up by thin air. "Holy shuck," she whispered before drawing up a diagram with estimates of the magic rock eating point. Adrenaline rushed through her veins and her mind sped at the new phenomenon.

The boys managed to figure out that the invisible hole was about one by one metre in area; just big enough for a Griever to squeeze through with its limbs retracted. She put her notepad down and simply stared off at the position in the grey sky as if she would eventually see through the illusion and figure out its mechanism.

Minho decided to continue running the Maze before heading back to the Glade. Nothing else had come up; and they made a pit stop at the Map Room before telling the others about the news. The rest of the Runners had already returned and were dutifully sketching out their own maps around the table. Lee came up to them the moment they walked in.

"Dude, look at this," he said and held up a shiny metal box in his hand. "There was a Griever sitting next to the doors to Sector Seven. When it heard me comin', it got up and ran away. This dropped from it."

"What the hell are these things doing dropping their klunk all over the place?" Cassandra made a disgusted face as she examined the object dubiously.

Lee shrugged. "Here." He handed the box to Minho, who opened the rusty hinges. He peered inside then looked up in consternation.

"An empty box," he deadpanned. "Great. This is so helpful."

"I don't know, man." The other Runner shrugged again. "Thought one of you might know somethin'."

Cassandra stood on her tiptoes and peeked into the simple container. There was nothing in it except for a serial of numbers stamped at its bottom.

"Is that like some kind of code?" Thomas asked over Minho's other shoulder. They glanced at him and hummed in thought.

"There are eight numbers," Minho said. "But what do they correspond to?"

"The only patterns in the Maze are the walls moving." Cassandra paused. "But we've already compared each sector. Maybe it's the days?"

"We'll think about this later." The Keeper shut the box with a snap and slipped it into his pocket. Suddenly there was a commotion outside the Homestead, a group of boys had gathered at the entrance and they were yelling loudly. Then someone broke through and was running towards them at breakneck speed. Cassandra could see a tangle of dark hair and fiery blue eyes as the figure came closer.

The girl stopped a few feet away, her gaze locked onto Thomas.

"I did it," she said. "I triggered the Ending."

   The girl, called Teresa, was thrown into the Slammer by Alby after her impromptu announcement. Cassandra was eating her dinner with Lee as she waited for a free bathroom stall when Newt came over. He took the seat opposite her and munched on an apple. "Hey, Cass. How's the newbie doin'?"

She shrugged. "Eh. He's okay."

"He looks like a lost deer half the time I see him," Lee remarked.

"We didn't see you and Minho yesterday," Newt started with the beginning of a smirk on his lips. "What were you guys doin'?"

"Yeah..." Lee leaned over with a sly grin of his own. "Did you see anything interesting while you were in the Deadheads?"

She was going to murder Lee that night. She had a sneaking suspicion that he somehow set her up with Minho. Her body inched away from them instinctively. "I managed to see the stars before the sky went out. M"

"Restin', huh? That a new slang for shackin' up in the Homestead?" Newt puckered his lips at her and made kissy sounds. "Always wondered if Minho was a good kisser, he always claims he's the best at everythin'."

"I bet'cha lover boy is a real charmer, eh, Cass?" Lee teased.

"Will you keep your voices down?" She turned in dismay and hissed at them, "I am not gonna talk about how good of a kisser Minho is!"

"Oho...so he is, huh?" Newt wiggled his eyebrows at her and Lee burst out in raucous laughter.

She made a strangled sound as she threw her hands in the air before hastily leaving. Cassandra made her way towards the bathroom stalls. It was dark inside and the light bulb seemed to have blown. Sighing in annoyance, she took off her clothes and stepped into the shower. A jet of freezing ice-cold water hit her and she let out a loud yelp at the onslaught.

She turned the knob off then hugged herself as her body shivered and teeth chattered uncontrollably. What the hell? If there had been one absolute constant in her life there in the Glade, it had been the warm showers she looked forward to at the end of a long day.

It made her angry at the thought that they would take away that one small comfort they had. Then she froze as the realisation clicked into place. The bulb hadn't blown, the electricity had—it was gone, and so was the heating. Cassandra grabbed hold of the knob again and turned it, her fingers slipping against the wet plastic. She turned it until the handle stuck in place but there wasn't anymore cascade of chilling water. Or any water at all.

Shuck.

She grabbed her towel and quickly dried herself before throwing her clothes back on. The door swung open with a sudden lurch as she hurled herself against it and stopped to find the Glade in complete disarray. Boys were running around with torches in their hands, shouting and pointing in every direction.

Minho ran up to her, his face stricken with terror. Even when they had been stuck in the Maze, she didn't remember seeing him look this frantic.

"The Doors!" he yelled. "They're not closing!"

This can't be happening, she thought, as a ripple of fear went up her spine. He started to pull her away, across the field and towards the Homestead. The shock left her mind and body numb, goose bumps rose on every inch of her skin. Then a Griever shrieked nearby, dangerously close to the walls.

This can't be real.

Each vote and comment will be used to power electricity for some hot showers (hopefully).