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

Frypan: *whenever a Bonfire ends early* You all took a life here today.
Frypan: The life of the party.

Lauren
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I was awake the day the sky vanished.

While some people might find it odd that I was awake, given my absolute hatred of not getting enough sleep, I didn't. Not right now. I hadn't been getting much sleep at all since Gally ran into the Maze. The constant fear of not knowing what was going on while he resided within the stone walls plagued me constantly. I had become accustomed to a pit inside my stomach, churning and making me sick all hours of the day.

Frypan tried his best to get me to eat, making my favorite meals. And while I did eat, it was hard to keep it down. I slowly got better at regulating how much I ate and when. It was a delicate dance, and I practiced it often.

Such an odd thing, letting your stomach rule your entire world.

I was thankful that Peter didn't see me a lot.

Running had become the only thing that kept me sane, and it also drove me crazy. Those few minutes that I could spend with Gally when I dropped off his supplies was something I looked forward to every time the sun rose. Those few moments, where I knew that he was okay, gave me such a relief from my constant state of panic.

It had only been two, three now that it's past midnight, days since he ran out into the Maze, and I was already almost clinically insane. Every time I met him, I had a new strategy of getting him back into the Glade, safe and sound.

None of the other Runners knew what I did and who I was meeting inside the Maze. They only knew that I was subbing for Ben.

Ben. I wonder if Gally saw him out in the Maze. I hope he didn't.

Minho once joked that it was a good thing that Gally had left.

"Now there's actually some peace and quiet." The Keeper cracked a smile.

It took a lot not to whack him upside the head. Gally wasn't the nicest guy and maybe wasn't generally liked, but he still was a valuable part of the Glade. The Builders had gotten restless, and Peter was having difficulty trying to keep them in line. Jonathan once had to get in the middle of one of Henry and Alec's spats.

Peter told me all about it when I got back one day.

"Now I know why Gally was always angry all the time. I wanna pull a Lauren and smack Henry back into a coma." He grumbled while stuffing his face full of chicken.

My eyebrow quirked up at that. " 'Pull a Lauren?' "

"Yeah, you know, pick up a hammer and swing it at someone."

I laughed. "Did you come up with that yourself?"

"Nah, Gally did."

My laughter stopped short, and as a reflex, I looked over at the Doors.

"He'll be fine."

"Let's keep telling ourselves that, it'll come true eventually." I brought my empty plate back up to Frypan.

Sitting back in my tree, I leaned my head up against the trunk. The night sky looked beautiful tonight like it had always done, yet I never seemed to appreciate the scene till I had stayed out late at night and watched the light get swallowed by the under-appreciated dark, bespeckled with stars.

But it vanished.

"What the shuck?"

No stars, no moon, nothing. It's like one of the Creators flipped a switch and turned off the sky, leaving us with a dull shade of grey. The most confusing thing about the whole situation was it still emitted light. Sure, it was faint but was light nonetheless.

Why turn the sky off if you still want us to see?

Scrambling, dropping down out of the branches, I ran out into the Glade to get a better look.

The dull, lifeless grey ceiling waged war on my internal clock. It was 12:35 in the morning, which means it is night. The moon's out, the stars are twinkling, normal people should be in bed, having peaceful dreams, and I should wander around the Glade like a depressed ghost with unfinished business, worrying about Gally.

There shouldn't be a grey sky.

That's not how life goes.

It just solidifies the fact that we're living in a trap, with people controlling our every move. Control is an illusion, and we keep falling for it every single day. The Creators rule all; we are just pawns in whatever they're doing with us.

I don't remember how long I stood out there, watching the grey sky, but eventually, I walked back to my tree and took a small nap. I guess that'll be the only time I'm able to sleep, whenever the sky's turned off.

Is that ironic or just weird?

|~^-^~|

I woke up almost four hours after that and stayed in my tree for a while. As I was about to go back to my room to change, I heard footsteps coming out of the Deadheads. And then the shouts.

I dropped down from my tree a second time and saw Thomas, confusion written all over his face as he headed towards the Glade.

"Happened early this morning, I just went back to sleep." I started walking with him.

He jumped. "How-?"

"You're not the only one who likes to sleep in the Deadheads." Pulling a small stick out of my hair, I shook it to make sure nothing else was in there.

After taking my hair down that one time by the Doors, I had grown fond of leaving it down when I'm not running. Of course, it was always a pain to brush, but I finally gave up trying to keep it brushed at all times. From what I could gather from the sheets of metal in the bathrooms, my hair had a naturally wavy look to it that made it seem better when I didn't brush it.

Or I could be fooling myself.

"It doesn't make sense." He muttered.

"What doesn't make sense is that it's still emitting light."

"Or that the sun's just, gone."

"Or that if the sky really was fake, why were our crops growing?" I added.

"There's got to be a rational answer to this."

"You're pretty smart, I'll let you do the thinking." I left his side to find Peter.

All Gladers gathered around the Box. I even noticed Frypan there, which meant breakfast was delayed. Not a single person was doing their jobs; they just stood in little groups talking with each other and pointing at the sky. Well, it really wasn't a sky now, was it? It was just a ceiling.

Peter stood close to the Box, an odd look on his face. It wasn't confusion; it looked angry and fearful.

"Did you get any sleep tonight?" He plucked a stray leaf out of my hair.

"I got almost four hours in."

"You really need to be getting more sleep, it's not good for you."

"I'll survive."

He huffed and looked back up at the ceiling. "I don't like this at all. Too many things are changing."

"Maybe for the better. We can't stay here forever."

For some reason, Peter didn't answer and walked to the Builder's hut. I watched him go, a million questions and urges to go to him running through my mind.

But I had another job to do, and it was more important.

After scrounging around the kitchen for something to eat, I packed up and got ready to leave. Newt stopped me before I left.

"Do you know when this happened?" He knew that I wasn't sleeping. I think he knew before Peter noticed.

"Around 12:30 this morning. Just changed like that." I snapped. "Like God flipped a switch."

He gave a grim chuckle. "Hey, you seen Gally out there?"

I looked at the Doors. "No."

"Tell me if you do, yeah?"

"Yeah, I, uh, I will." After giving an awkward nod, I hurried out to The Doors. 'God flipping a switch' was making me late to meet up with Gally to drop off his supplies.

Luckily, getting supplies was the least of my worries. Frypan took what should have been Gally's portion from each meal and stuck it in a container to be given to him later. I paid him with doing dish duty after supper each night. I managed to talk him into dish duty. He originally wanted me to give up my chocolate chip cookie rights.

No one was going to make me give up chocolate chip cookie rights.

Running fast to get to the rendezvous point, my stomach decided that this morning should have been a small meal morning.

My stomach controls my entire life; let's move on, shall we?

Turning the last corner with only a minute to spare, I saw a sight that turned my blood cold.

"Oh God, no."

He wasn't there.

|~^-^~|

The Glade had left its confused quiet state when I came back from the Maze.

Guys ran around, talking loudly to try and get others to hear what they were saying from across the Glade, some just flat-out screamed at each other, and it took me a second to leave the quiet calm of the Maze.

Newt and Alby were nowhere to be found.

After taking a long time in the Map Room, I found Peter sitting by the door when I came out.

"Thank God, I thought I'd go crazy for a minute."

"You and everyone else, apparently." I gestured vaguely to the pandemonium that surrounded us.

"Well, the Box didn't come up today, the girl woke up a couple minutes ago, and-"

"The Doors aren't closing." I noticed it inside the Map Room, the familiar shaking didn't rattle the table and mess up my drawing.

"Yeah." Peter stood up.

Throwing my hair back up into a ponytail, we turned to each other and nodded. Peter followed as I started running to the Builder's hut.

"We need to grab Jonathan and get the Bricknicks to help." I noticed Newt and Alby emerging from the Deadheads with a couple of others. Billy and Jackson emerged after the group, with the new girl in between them.

"I'll rally the guys, and start working on getting supplies." Peter pulled me back to reality.

"We have to hurry, patching up all of the Doors will take a lot of time." I grabbed his arm before we split.

"Hey. Don't freeze up, we'll all be okay. Just focus on one task at a time."

Peter looked surprised that I knew that bit of information. "Wha-?"

"I wasn't unconscious the whole time I got Stung." Smiling, I pulled him into a hug and left before he could respond.

Jonathan wasn't hard to find, as he was already on his way to see me.

"I need you to gather the Bricknicks and send them towards the Builder's hut, we need to set up a wall since the Doors didn't close." I informed him. "Peter's already getting the Builders."

"Alright. I came to ask you what ideas you had in mind." He chuckled.

Jeff came up to our group. "Newt and Alby want to see all the Keepers by the Homestead."

"Guess that includes us."

"We have less than an hour to do everything, and we need to defend ourselves against an attack tonight. With the Doors not closing, the Grievers are bound to come." Newt told the little group of people gathered.

"I've already got Peter gathering the Builders and Bricknicks to start barricading the Doors." Newt jumped a little at my appearance.

"We should get anyone that isn't working on something else to help, it doesn't take much to swing a hammer, and we need every man we can get." Jonathan added.

"That's a good idea. Zart, Winston, can your guys do that?"

The Keepers nodded.

"Send everyone to the Builder's hut, Peter'll be there and would like to know that he's getting more people. And tell him about the time restraint." I informed him.

"Quick thinkin', Lauren, gathering everyone to start patchin' the Doors." Alby complimented.

"Thanks, nice of you for finally appreciating me."

Alby, with a subtle eye-roll, kept talking. "We'll move everyone to the Homestead. It's the best place to keep all of us together. With the new remodel, probably the best place to defend. We're makin' it our fortress."

"Frypan, in case we get trapped inside, move all non-perishables there, and get the rest of your guys to pick a room and stay. They can start separating people." Newt ordered.

"You can move the food into my room, it's probably the most empty and cleanest of the bunch. And no one else is going to be bunking with me tonight." I offered.

"I can do that." Frypan left the group.

"Where the bloody hell is Minho?" Newt muttered. "He'll need to move all the weapons and pass them out to people, the other Runners can help with the Doors or go wherever they're needed."

"Jeff," Alby turned to the Med-Jack. "Find Minho and tell him the plan. Be sure to tell 'em we have less than an hour to do everythin' and get everyone inside."

For some reason, Minho didn't get the memo to meet up. With one look back at us, Jeff left to find Minho and the Runners, slightly limping as he ran. I wondered what had happened.

"If we're making the Homestead our 'fortress,' Peter needs to send some guys to board up the windows. I'll go help if you guys don't need me anymore." Jonathan said.

"Go ahead. What else are we missin'?" Alby asked.

"Someone needs to pass out blankets and pillows for everyone sleeping inside the Homestead." I realized. "We only have a few beds, the rest of them will have to sleep on the floor."

"Me and my guys got that." Lee left, yelling for his crew.

"I think we should kill the lights, only use it for emergencies." Newt told the rest of us. Only Clint, Thomas, Newt, Alby, and I remained by the Homestead.

Alby nodded in agreement. "Clint, can you pass out flashlights? Grab some Runners to help, they can reach more people."

"Yeah. Lauren, you wanna join?" Clint asked.

"I'll go help with the Doors, but I can send some people your way. Ask Minho to grab you the flashlight boxes, they should be with the Runner's stuff."

"Suit yourself."

"We're missin' something, but we're running out of time. Newt, stay with me. Thomas, go help with the Doors, and Lauren,"

I looked at Alby.

"Trust your instincts."

After a moment of shocked silence, I nodded. "Will do." And went to help Peter.

|~^-^~|

Frypan really did a number on my room. Shining my flashlight, I saw food piled high along the walls, in small boxes and, I was shocked to see these, milk crates. Seeing them brought back short memories of using them as toy boxes when I was young.

I sat on my bed, wondering if I should just listen to the little blue music player until morning.

It must have been a couple of hours; I sat on my bed, with nothing to do other than think. I turned off my flashlight awhile ago, thinking that maybe if it was dark outside, I could try and go to sleep for a little bit.

But with the sun being gone, and the fact that I couldn't sleep for three days now should have told me I couldn't sleep. Especially not now.

I really hated thinking sometimes.

The thought of Gally not being at the spot today rattled around in my brain, shoving every other thought to the side, claiming its victory as being the most significant anxiety-inducing thought around.

At around 10, I checked my watch periodically, I heard a knock on my door, and Peter popped his head in, illuminated by his flashlight.

"If you're changing, I'm so sorry."

"I changed awhile ago, thinking I might be able to go to sleep." I gave a small laugh. "I was wrong."

"Can I sleep with you tonight? Alec's snoring is terrible, and all the Griever sounds scare me." I noticed his knife clutched tightly in one hand, his flashlight in the other.

"Sure, find a spot amongst all the food."

"Thanks."

Peter made himself home on the floor, right next to my bed, laying out his blankets and pillow, flicking off his flashlight once he was done. The knife never left his hand.

"You did a good job boarding up everything with the little time you had." I told the darkness.

"Thanks, although the Track-hoes and the Slicers will never ever help us again."

"What's wrong with them?" I asked innocently.

"Only everything. Why'd you leave us, anyway?"

The question startled me. "Newt wanted me to do something."

"What was it?"

"I can't tell you, I'm sorry."

"Alright then. Keep your secrets." He shifted, and I heard the distant Griever screeches from outside the Homestead.

A couple of minutes passed, seeming longer than ever before. I stopped looking at my watch, knowing that the digital numbers would never go faster.

Finally, I started counting the monsters' moans in place of sheep to help me sleep. I got to 17 before Peter interrupted.

"Lauren?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think you could join me down here?"

"Huh?"

"I'm not trying to do anything," He said quickly, "I just would feel a lot safer."

I grabbed one of my blankets and tried not to step on him as I got down on the floor. The only sounds that we heard were the shuffling of the two of us as we got comfortable and the Grievers' wails.

"You," I yawned, his body heat already making me tired, "might be the only person I'd do this with."

Peter yawned too, dropping his knife underneath my bed and moving it to where we couldn't accidentally impale ourselves. "I feel honored. And thank you."

I yawned again, my head getting heavy as I used his chest as a pillow. "You're welcome."

He made a very comfortable sleeping buddy, I'll admit. And it took me a second and him running his fingers through my hair before I realized what he was doing.

"Peter, feeling safe wasn't the only reason you brought me down here, isn't it?"

"Hm?" The guy was almost asleep. "I have no," A yawn cut through his sentence, "idea what you're talking about."

"I see."

And I fell into a deep sleep for the first time in a while.

|~^-^~|

Waking up to a Griever right outside of the Homestead was not high on my bucket list. I blinked away sleep, untangling myself out of Peter's arms to see what the commotion was about.

Thanking whatever shank boarded up the windows in my room, I looked through the big slats in between the boards to see how far away the thing was. And as I looked outside the Glade, I saw a figure moving towards the Homestead, too small to be a Griever, but too big to be a stray animal escaped from the barn.

"Peter." I felt terrible, but I shook him awake.

"What? Why are you awake?"

"Tell me you see the same thing I do."

"What?" He followed me to the window.

"I'm not sure whether to be happy he's back or not."

"I'm feeling the same way. Did he always look like that when you saw him in the Maze?" Peter turned away from the window, while I stayed.

"Sure, he didn't look the greatest, but this is a new level."

"You saw him today, so what could've happened?"

I finally turned away. "I didn't, that's the thing."

"Maybe he got worried?" Peter offered.

"Or maybe he's another Variable." I realized.

"What the shuck's a Variable?"

Why did I know that word? It popped in my head, and seemed like such a normal thing to say about the situation. I scoured my memories, trying to thing of something that could help. But I had nothing.

"It's too hard to explain."

He's coming for Thomas.

"I thought you died!" I exclaimed, forgetting Peter was still in the room.

"Why would I die?! I've been right here the whole time!" Peter was done with my mysteriousness.

"Not you, sorry."

"What?!"

"Not that I'm complaining, but I thought you left." Looking nowhere in particular, I waited for Crackface's response.

But none came.

"Why would you pop in for one—oh no."

"Care to explain?!"

"Where's Thomas and crew staying?" I grabbed Peter's hands, forcing him to listen.

"Well, I saw Alby leave the room right above you earlier, and he never says far away from Newt, and Newt doesn't stay away from Thomas for very long, which I find odd but I'm not against, so—"

"Right above us, got it."

Turning to open the door and leave the Homestead, it was Peter's turn to grab my hands.

"Now hold up, what the hell is going on?!"

"Gally's coming for Thomas, and I don't think one of them is going to still be alive by the time tonight's over." I said in a hurry.

He dropped my hands. "Holy S-"

"Hey, we're still PG here." I winked.

Throwing open the door, I raced down the hall to try and catch Gally before he went up the stairs. Regretfully, I did.

Now, why might I say regretfully? It's because I saw an image I'd rather forget. Gally stood there, in all of his muscular glory, but every other aspect of him looked ragged. His clothes were torn, his face and arms bloodied, and he had the same expression I saw when he ran to the Maze. I don't pretend to be naive to the dangers of the Maze. You're going to get roughed up a bit. And if you're staying in there for three days and nights, you'll get battered and bruised. But this? I don't know what happened today, but it definitely was a bit more extreme than than the last days combined.

I felt Peter come up behind me and suck in a breath. I threw a hand back to let him know not to follow me.

"Don't, don't get in my way." Even his voice came out ragged, matching his whole aesthetic.

"C'mon, Gal, you know me better than that." The walls of the Homestead started shaking, I knew there was only a matter of time before the Grievers got to us.

"They're going to kill us!" He looked a mixture of scared, enraged, and flat-out crazy. I flinched at his last word, and something flicked behind his eyes.

What happened inside the Maze? Gally didn't look much different each time I met him, but something, I'm not sure what, went on behind the scenes. I was too scared for his well-being to notice anything other than him still being alive.

"Who? The Grievers?" I scanned his eyes for the real Gally. "Thomas? Is it going to be you?"

That was it. That was the switch.

His eyes got softer, and his breathing hitched a little. The thick muscles slowly untensed, and I saw it. The scared boy, not reacting well to all the changes, scared for his friends, and wanting everything to go back to the way it was. He'd do anything for things to go back. For Thomas and the chick to go back down the Box hole, for the Grievers to stay inside the Maze, the sun to come up, the Doors to close and for people to understand. To understand that things are changing, and maybe not for the better. He knew what the real world was like, while all I remembered was the good memories. When I went through the Changing, I came out for the better. Gally wasn't as fortunate.

Why was I so hell-bent on trying to change him for the better?

What happened inside the Maze that made Gally stop filtering himself? He wasn't the nicest guy, but what flipped inside him when Thomas came up? And why did I ignore the blatantly obvious signs?

"You don't, they don't," The scared Builder started stuttering.

"I know, but please, you have to understand us, too." Slowly, I walked towards him, a hand still thrown back to tell Peter to stay. "We can't stay here forever."

Shuck it, I lost him.

Before I could react, the switch flipped again, I was shoved to the wall as Gally ran up the stairs, throwing open the door to Thomas's room.

I brushed myself off, muttering. "Why do people always throw me to the wall? I'm perfectly capable of stepping to the side."

Since my hand wasn't thrown behind me, Peter took the opportunity to come to my aid.

"Are you okay? Did he hurt you?" He scanned me for injuries.

"No. The real Gally's still in there. It's like you said, I'm the only one he won't hurt." I looked up at the room, hearing the commotion going on. The door swung back, almost shutting, and turned my eyes back to Peter.

"You gonna go up there?"

My heart was torn in two, one part wanting to go up there and somehow be a big hero, bringing Gally back from whatever he was going through. But the other part knew that sometimes, you had to know when to stop.

"Lauren?" Peter brought me back.

You're the only one he won't hurt.

The words bumped around in my mind, multiplying and overlapping with one another.

"Go back to my room. Keep the knife with you, we don't know how many more things there are."

Peter gave a small nod.

Turning to go follow in Gally's footsteps, I opened the door again to see him rip a board off the window and slam it against Newt's head, rendering him unconscious. People rushed past me, trying to escape what madness lay inside the room. I didn't recognize the faces, but I barely had anything run through my head other than fear.

My Med-Jack instincts kicked in, and I knelt by Newt's side, finding a random towel, pressing it up against his head in an effort to stop the bleeding.

Thomas yelled at Gally, but to no avail. The two got into a screaming match, Gally still trying to rip the boards from the window.

As the last one landed on the ground, the Griever shattered the window, and I quickly used my body to shield Newt's. I felt a thud, as something bumped into the bed. Praying it was Gally coming to his senses, I peeked my head up to find out it was Thomas.

We both quickly gathered ourselves, as the Griever was now shredding the wall to get to us. Gally stood in the corner, with that same look he had earlier. Thomas still sat on the floor, complete terror written on his face. He gave a quick look around the room, finally noticing me and Newt.

The monster now had a singular arm reaching for me or more accurately, Newt. I grabbed a knife that was on the nightstand, fully ready to use it to protect myself, knowing it couldn't be much good. For some reason, Thomas finally got to his feet, looking around the room to get himself a weapon.

But Gally started speaking again, and the thing retracted it's arm, but still tried to get inside the Homestead. I quickly thanked God that I had rebuilt it, because it might be the only thing keeping us from certain death.

"No one ever understood!" Gally screamed, trying desperately to be heard over the Griever. "No one ever understood what I saw, what the Changing did to me!"

"Then make us understand!" I yelled back, still shielding Newt from the Griever. "You act like you're all alone, like you're the only one who went through the Changing! I've been here the entire time, yet you still pull this! I've tried to understand, to be there for you!" 

He finally pulled his eyes from Thomas, and looked at me. "You've tried to understand, yet you couldn't. You went through the Changing, yet all you got back was memories of your old life, your sweet life back in the other Maze! I don't know what you did, but you didn't go through the same Changing I did!" Gally all but spat his words, making sure they stung, leaving deep wounds.

"Don't go back to the real world! You don't . . . want . . . to remember!" He gave one last look to us, and then leaped towards the Griever.

"NO!" I screamed, tripping over Thomas and landing on the glass-covered floor, watching helplessly as the monster obeyed, using its mechanical arms to clasp on the Gally, making sure no one would be able to save him.

Thomas yelled out, but I stayed on the floor, crying, as one of my best friends sunk into the pulsating body of a Griever, never to be seen again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I, ahem, have nothing other to say than:
AND I OOP-

But in all seriousness tho, this chapter was really hard to write. At 4,800+ words, it is the second longest chapter in this book.

AND CAN I JUST GET A ROUND OF APPLAUSE FOR THAT FIRST PART?? PLEASE??
I WAS SO HAPPY TO BE ABLE TO PULL IT OFF ❤️

The story is that Lauren gets really philosopher-like and uses big words when she's really tired and/or really anxious, I.E. the catastrophic word-drop in chapter 33? I think?
I just think it's really cool and I absolutely love it about her character 🥰

ANYway, this chapter title beats chapter 13's title, and everything else can go home 😌💅🏼

Questions!!

-Scale of 1-10, how would you rate this chapter title?

-How many of you squealed with the cuddles
(i would also like to take this time to remind y'all that Peter IS aromantic)

-Did you still expect Gally to jump in the Griever once Lauren went upstairs?

Anyway, three chapters left, so here's a cheer for more 3,000+ word count chapters!