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

Abra: *deadpan* Everyone dies. You either kill yourself or get killed. What are you going to do?
Lauren: *visible confusion*

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

Sleep, wake up, repeat. Only this time, I was happy to wake up. Today I was working with the Cooks.

My mood must have been evident on my face because Peter spotted it quickly at breakfast.

"What's gotten into you?" He asked.

"I, Lauren-" I stopped. I didn't remember my last name. I just thought of the first one that popped into my head. "Starell, am actually happy to work with a Keeper today. I'm working with the Cooks today. And I'm excited."

"Lauren Starell? You remember your last name?" Peter all but screamed. Everyone looked at our table. Murmurs were heard all across the guys.

"What?"

"No one else remembers their last name."

"Told you, she's special."

In a couple of seconds, Newt walked over to our table.

"Greenie, let's take a walk." I followed him with a glare shot at Peter. He just looked confused.

"Newt, I-" He stopped me.

"Do you remember anything else about your past?" He said every word deliberately. 

"I, um, can read people?" I tried to remember anything else. But I didn't feel like telling Newt about how I knew what a Griever was.

"And?"

"Nothing else. Newt, I just made that last name up. Peter was being an idiot and thought it was real."

Newt sighed. He wasn't happy about the lack of info. "You remember anything, you come to tell Alby or me. We need every bloody piece of information we can get." He walked off back towards the Kitchen, and I followed regretfully. I didn't want to go back, but since I was going to work with Frypan, I had to.

I walked to the Kitchen to start my day.

"Hey, Frypan!" I put on a fake smile.

"Lauren! You ready?" Frypan seemed unfazed with the events of what happened outside. This situation was good. I didn't want to answer any more questions.

"Yup! What are we doing first?"

"We're washing dishes and then starting on-"

Frypan showed me around the Kitchen, telling me where he kept all of his materials, and I was introduced to Jim, one of his helpers that I was going to work with. When Frypan told me I was in charge of making lunch, I felt honored for some odd reason. It made sense afterward when Jim said that Frypan only let a tiny amount people take charge of the meals.

I got to be petty when I served at lunch, as I just so 'happened' to drop Zeus's brownie on the ground. It felt good.

"Whoops. Sorry about that." I said unemotionally.

"Really?" He asked.

"Keep it moving; we got other people to serve." Frypan showed up at the window.

The rest of the day went by smoothly after that. Zeus and his two friends didn't show up for dinner, so all was right in the world.

After saying goodbye to Frypan and having him tell me he planned to get me to be a Cook, I had forgotten entirely about the events of this morning.

But it would resurface, and I don't think I was going to be ready for it.

|~^_^~|

After showering and having a glaring contest with Zeus at breakfast, I made my way to the Homestead to start working with Clint.

He wasn't there yet, so I looked through the cabinets to get myself situated with where everything was located. One cabinet held some glass vials which contained some weird-looking liquid in them. They looked extraordinarily familiar but seemed menacing.

Clint walked in.

"You ready, Lauren?"

"Yeah."

"That's the Grief Serum," Clint said. He must have noticed me looking at it.

"Oh. What's it do?" I asked. But I felt like I knew the answer already.

"When someone gets stung by a Griever, they go through the Changing. It's a tough thing to go through. And if they don't get the Serum, they'll die. If they do get the Serum, they'll make it out alive with some memories." He explained.

"Memories? Like, before this?"

"Yeah. But only a few. One of the few people I know that has gone through the Changing is Gally."

"Gally? What happened?" I was shocked.

"It's not my place to tell. But the Changing changes people. Hence the name. I wouldn't go and ask him. Anyway, you ready to get started?"

Clint was very impressed with my skills. And I was pretty good. I made only a few mistakes, but Clint thought I was Med-Jack material.

I bandaged limbs, cleaned and doled out medicine, Clint staying close the whole time. When I got done with everything, Clint and Jeff gave me a big smile as I walked out.

"Thanks! See you at supper!" I yelled as I left the Homestead.

I went up to Frypan's kitchen and grabbed my plate. It was a meatloaf night. Oh, joy. Pushing the plate aside, I went over to the Deadheads. The further I went in, I heard crying.

"Hello? It's Lauren."

I listened.

"The Greenie."

I walked towards the sound. It was a boy I hadn't seen around before.

"Hey," I said gently.

He looked up at me. "What do you want?" He tried wiping the tears from his eyes.

"It's ok. I won't tell." I sat by a tree across from him, making myself comfortable. I wasn't planning on going anywhere for a while.

He sniffled. "What are you doing here?"

"We're having meatloaf today. And I don't like ketchup. What are you doing here?" I questioned.

"Um." He sniffled again. "I, uh,"

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"It's ok." The guy took a deep breath. "I messed up today while working, and Gally yelled at me pretty harshly. I don't know why it affected me more today than other days." He finished.

I was stunned. "Oh. Is this a regular thing?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

"What's your name?"

"Carl."

Carl. I would have to remember that name. "I'm Lauren."

"So I've heard." Carl chuckled.

I tried to hear what was going on outside of the forest. "Have you had any supper?"

"No, why?"

"Stay here." I made my way out.

"Hey, Frypan!" He was still in the Kitchen washing dishes when I walked up.

"Lauren! I didn't see you at supper, where'd you go?" He turned at the sound of my voice.

"I don't like meatloaf, so I wandered into the Deadheads. Do you have any sandwiches you can spare?" I flashed him a winning smile.

"I don't know," He dangled one in the air teasingly.

"Please?" I pleaded.

"All right."

I grabbed a water bottle as well and headed back into the Deadheads. I tossed the sandwich to Carl and opened up the water bottle.

"Kiddo, I don't know what age you are, but you look younger than me, so you are now going to be henceforth known as Kiddo."

"Really? People say I look about 13. I guess they're true."

"They are, trust me. How old do I look?" I asked. I wondered if I even looked my age.

"You look about 15, maybe 16."

"Oh. Thanks." I hesitated. Did I want to go down this road? "Tell me about Gally. What's he like? As Keeper of the Builders, I mean."

"Well, he's kinda mean. He's quick to anger and doesn't like when things change." Carl said.

"Uh, huh."

We stayed like that for a couple of minutes, him talking and I listening.

I didn't know what I was going to do with this information, but I was glad I had it. Tomorrow was when I would be with the Builders.

|~^_^~|

"Come in, Lauren. Have a seat."

Inside the room was Minho. He was tied to a chair, on his face a myriad of bruises and cuts. We weren't the closest of friends, but this hurt to see.

"What did you do to him?"

I didn't get an answer.

"Hurts to say this," Randall said, "but it looks like your friend didn't learn from his last attempt to go outside. I guess we were too easy on him, on everyone. Now we have no choice but to step things up. Don't you agree?"

"No." I spat. I looked at Minho. He stared back, and I tried to tell him it was going to be ok.

Ramirez guided me to my seat, with guards on either side of me. But they got up and left, and then I was left with Randall, Ramirez, and a doctor I didn't know the name.

"Lauren," Randall started, "you do realize we've been watching your little nighttime meets, correct? You all might be young and smart, but it was foolish to think that you were outsmarting us."

"No duh. But you let it happen though, didn't you?"

He didn't respond.

"We're not here to beat you up over Minho's mistake. I noticed that most of you tried to talk him out of it, but you were uncharacteristically silent. Why is that so? Did you know you were being recorded, so you didn't voice your opinion?"

"If you're so smart, why can't you figure it out?" I snapped.

"But there are some valuable lessons to be learned from this, and we're going to take advantage of the situation." He continued.

"Why don't you tell me what your point is, so we can all go back to bed." He was dancing around, and it was making me mad.

"If you insist. You are going to sit with us and watch how we're going to teach Minho his lesson. We need witnesses, to be frank. We need the word to get around. We can't let something like this ever happen again. Our subjects need to know that actions have consequences."

"What are you going to do to him?" I tried to keep my voice even. The way Randall said his little speech, didn't sound good.

"You don't need to know. But I'm sure you'll have your run-in with these creatures."

Creatures? "What?"

"Let's get on with it," Randall said. He pressed a button. "Go ahead, Alice. Open the pod."

This was when I finally noticed there was an oval container on a different screen. The pod had a seam on one side and hinges on the other. It must be the container for the creature they were talking about.

The seam split open, and steam hissed from it. Fog obscured the room, and I looked over at the screen Minho was shown on. He wasn't looking at us anymore. He was looking at the pod, fear written in bold letters all over his face.

My blood ran cold as I finally came to a sudden realization.

Minho was in the same room as the pod.

|~^_^~|

I woke up in a cold sweat. What had happened to Minho? I thought about falling back asleep, but I knew that the memory wouldn't have continued.

The sun was up outside my window, and I groaned and started my day.

After throwing my hair up in a ponytail, I went down to breakfast.

Gally was sitting at our regular table, and I sat down, nibbling on my bacon.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Uh-sure?"

"It's kinda a touchy subject, but I have to talk to someone, and you're the only one who seems to have some memories."

Gally looked relieved for some reason. "What is it?"

"Do you remember having secret meetings with Alby, Newt, Minho, and some other kids?"

"I was only in one of your maintenance room meetings. I talked to the rest of them during classes and such."

"Ok, well," I hesitated. Did he remember? "Do you remember the plan to escape?"

"Yeah, I worked with Minho on it. But only bits and pieces."

"Do you remember what happened to Minho? When we were found out?"

"No." He lied. A dark shadow came over his face.

"You're lying. What happened to him?" I questioned.

"You don't need to know." He got up and walked away. I let the matter drop, but I knew I was going to find out sooner or later.

I finished my bacon and followed him to where the Builders worked. I'd been there a couple of times before, but this time it seemed empty.

Gally showed me around and told me what projects they were working on, and then I shadowed him for the first couple of hours.

After lunch, I was tasked with my very own project, cutting out boards to fix the Homestead. I had Henry and Carl helping me out, and we settled into a good rhythm. I was chatting with Carl when disaster struck.

Even after I beat Minho in a fight and gave Zeus a bruised nose, Henry decided to try me. Didn't he know I liked my space?

I whirled around and knocked him out cold. He landed on the ground, and I came to a sudden realization. I thought I used my fist, but it turned out that I used the hammer in my hand.

"Shuck, Lauren. You murdered him!" Peter exclaimed.

The hammer clanged on the ground. This was not good for me.

"Peter! You're in charge until I get back." Gally picked up Henry and took him to the Homestead.

"All right. Let's get back to work." Peter said.

Another Builder was paired with Carl and me, and we worked in silence for the rest of the time. Gally came back from the Homestead, bringing back no news about Henry. I wanted to feel bad for him, but I couldn't muster up any pity. He knew I would fight back. So what was he thinking?

I went to dinner with the rest of the Builders and sat in my usual spot with Peter and Gally.

"Will I get in trouble?" I asked Gally.

"I dunno. This makes 2 people you've injured in the past week."

"But she didn't attack first." Peter countered.

"I kinda did." Zeus catcalled me, but that was verbal. I punched him in the nose. That was physical. Henry may have invaded my privacy, but I hit him with a hammer. Physical first hit again.

"Alby's most likely not gonna throw you in the Slammer. But you might get punished." Gally told us.

"Newt's not unreasonable. He'll fight on your behalf." Peter consoled.

I just nodded and finished my supper.

I went to sleep that night thinking of horrible ways I might get punished. It wasn't the best night's sleep I'd ever had.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bonjour!

Uhm- *awkward wave* Hi?

This was kinda a FULL chapter. I wanted to have Lauren and Minho running in this chapter but then I realized I was basically going to write their ENTIRE interaction with each other instead of skimming like I had been.

So, HA you're going to have to wAit

Questions!

-What do you guys think of Lauren?

-Do you think she'll hospitalize any more guys?

-Questions, comments, constructive criticism?

ANYway... Bai~~