I do not own The Maze Runner or any of its characters

Miyoko: *trying to be nice* Lauren! I liked your speech!!!
Lauren: Omg I like didn't even like try it was just like improv-
Miyoko: why can't you take the finching comPLEMENT

Lauren
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"Shuck, you are."

I had to laugh.

So I did.

I laughed until I could barely breathe. It was the type of laugh that made you feel like you had abs and you had tears trying to come out of their ducts.

Peter was concerned.

"Lauren, are you laughing or crying?"

"I'm laughing. It's just, before I got my room, I was seriously going to build it myself. If I was going to sleep with the rest of you guys, I was going to build a shack." I took a deep breath. "And now I'm actually building my room!" I dissolved into another fit of laughter.

It took awhile, but I composed myself.

"Peter, where am I going to sleep?"

He was silent. "Well, I guess you've got two options. One, you could sleep outside. Or two, you could bunk with one of the guys in the Homestead."

Standing up, I brushed off leaves and wood shavings. "I guess it's moving day."

Peter and I made our way back to civilization. As much as I hated to admit it, I missed it out there. The silence of the Deadheads was almost suffocating. I missed the action of the Glade, the way you could look anywhere and be entertained.

I guess that means I'm an extrovert. I added the new realization to the list of things I new about myself.

We parted ways, Peter going back to the Builders, and I headed to where Jonathan had some guys picking through the rubble of the side of the Homestead.

"Anything salvageable?" I asked.

"Well, we've found your dresser. To our surprise, it's intact. You should have all your stuff inside of it. Your bed's toast, sorry." Jonathan broke the news.

"Oh. At least I have clothes. Where do you want me?"

I spent the rest of the day picking through wood and trying to find anything I could of my bedroom. It was saddening. By the end of the day, we had unburied my dresser, gotten it moved to a better location, and found the dusty remains of my backpack.

By some miracle, my journal had made it through with only some scratches. It had sat on top of my dresser and when all the debris fell, it just stayed there.

I threw everything into my backpack and tried to find Gally.

|~^-^~|

"It's just until I can get my room built."

If anything, I was getting good training out of this conversation. Gally was a wall.

"I value my sleep a lot, and I really don't want to sleep with the other guys. I'll go to the Deadheads. That's where I'll sleep if you say no." I folded my arms.

He was thinking about the idea. He wasn't tense, like he was completely against it. I was relieved. Doing this wasn't completely hopeless.

"Please? Don't make me sleep with the rest of the guys." I was putting on my puppy-dog eyes and Gally knew it.

"Alright." Thank the Lord.

"Really? Thank you!" I gave him a small hug.

In about an hour, Gally whipped up a cot so that I wouldn't have to sleep on the hardwood floor. I followed him back into the Homestead where I was shocked to find out where his room was.

The third floor.

"Oh no." The words tumbled out before I could stop them.

"What's wrong?" He set down the off-brand bed near the window, opposite his own bed.

"Nothing! I just forgot about getting blankets." Throwing my backpack on the cot, I ran out of the room so fast I swear I left marks on the floor.

Gally's room was the same room I found the journal page about me.

"And you know what? We're not even gonna talk about it. It's forgotten!" I whispered to myself.

After grabbing a suitable amount of blankets and spreading them out on the cot, I spent the remainder of my time helping clear out the side of the Homestead. I was proud of the work the guys had done. By the time dinner rolled around, we had gotten 80% of the debris cleared up. We could start repairs tomorrow.

Dinner was a fun affair.

For some odd reason, Gally had decided to shut down, and Peter thought it would be a fun idea to join in on the brooding as well. Which meant, I could say anything I wanted and they wouldn't listen.

"I thought I might propose to Abra tomorrow."

"Minho found a baby Griever!"

"I hear the next Greenie was my soulmate in a previous life."

"I have decided to raise baby chickens in Gally's room!"

"Chicken wing, chicken wing, hot dogs and balonea, chicken and macaroni, chillin' with my homies.." I finally just started singing random things.

"What are you singing?" Peter asked.

"Really? That's the thing you hear?" Not the baby Grievers?

"You're not raisin' chickens in my room." Gally muttered, then went to put his plate up.

"Oh, so you were listening to me? You have a funny way of showing it."

"Oh yes, and please tell me about this relationship you're having with Abra. What does the ring look like?" Peter put his head in his hands and pretended to listen earnestly to whatever I was about to say.

"Finch you." I threw my roll at him.

"Tell me how it goes later!" He called as I was putting my plate up.

Smiling sarcastically, I walked to Homestead.

"Knock knock."

"Come in." Gally called.

I grabbed what I needed to take a shower and exited quickly. It was just plain weird to be in that room. Why would Gally, of all people, write out a whole page outlining all the good things about me?

It was baffling.

In the showers, I decided I wasn't even going to think about it. Dwelling on the whole ordeal would just make things awkward and I didn't want to mess up our friendship. The funny thing about it was I didn't even like Gally in that way.

Once I was tucked in underneath my suitable amount of blankets, I decided I needed to ask Gally an important question.

One that had been weighing on my heart.

"Gally, what kind of memories do you have?"

It was silent for a couple of minutes before he answered.

"What do you want to know?"

"What's it like, outside of here?"

"I don't know much about that. All I seem to remember is heat."

"Oh. Anything else?" That was such a vague answer.

"I remember where we were before we were shipped in this shucking place."

"Really?"

"It's like a lab. We're trained, being tested on, all by these scientists. And there's these two kids too. They're a part of them, working with the scientists. It was bad."

"That's weird. Were they our age? Whatever our age is?"

"Yeah. We can't trust them."

"You act like they're going to come here."

"You never know." I heard the bed creak, the shuffle of sheets, and then it was silence.

"Night, Gally."

"Night."

After a couple deep breaths, I was out.

|~^-^~|

The Doors had never seemed so close. I heard yells, but I assumed that the girls were pointing out the giant monster following me. I breathed out a huge sigh. The Griever wouldn't follow me while it was still daylight outside.

"She's coming!" I heard Terra yell.

With whatever strength I had in me, I used it right then. It seemed weird that the Griver was following me so close to the Glen, but I couldn't dwell on it.

The Doors were closing. I could feel the vibrations through my bone. I could just barely make it, if I went a bit faster.

"Once again, please let me get through this, Lord." I prayed.

It was divine intervention that got me gaining distance away from the Griever.

But divine intervention didn't get me into the Glen.

"No!" I slammed into the Doors. They shut at the worst possible time. I started pounding on them, wondering if the Creators had just a bit of sympathy for a girl at Death's doorstep.

"Finch!" I yelled at the top of my lungs.

Whirrrrrrr
Click-click-click
Whirrrrrrr
Click-click-click

I turned around to meet my doom. I grabbed the bow slung across my back, and notched an arrow.

It's almost poetic, the way that the bow fell and the way that the arrow landed on top of it. The last stand of the Glenner who dared to outrun a Griever. I hoped that the others knew I put up a fight. Or tried to. I hoped that they wouldn't be sad. I didn't mean to die.

I was able to get a brief glimpse of the scene before I was sucked into the Griever's gooey body.

And that's when I blacked out.

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*sitting here, vibing to the Hunger Games Soundtrack*
Well howdy!!! Happy New Year!!!
Let's hope 2021 is MUCH better than 2020!

I'm sorry if this chapter wasn't what y'all wanted. It was kinda hard to write. BUT- I did have a lot of fun writing Lauren. I have SO many more sentences that she said at dinner but I cut them out. :(

They just didn't make sense.

Questions!

-Why did Ava augment (change) Lauren's memory?

-Opinions on Labra???

-Will Lauren hate Thomas, like Gally, or end up being perfectly fine with him?

I just have to leave you with this:
KILLMONGER'S THEME SONG FROM BLACK PANTHER IS THE GREATEST THEME SONG AND Y'ALL CAN'T CHANGE MY MIND.

Edit: SPOILERS FOR WANDAVISION!!!

Okay but Agatha All Along may beat Killmonger.

The thing had NO reason to go as hard as it did, and when she said
"And I killed Sparky too!"
I WAS ABOUT READY TO PULL A WANDA AND YEET A WITCH

(there was a comment on an Extended Version of Agatha All Along that I have lisended to on repeat for the past couple of days, and it said
"And I killed Sparky too!"
Now that's an Avengers level threat

I DIED-)