𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗦𝗜𝗫 .ᐟ

❛ the maze ❜

𝗔𝗦 thomas stands up, emilia pulls herself from the wall, charging toward thomas shoving him aggressively, "you really can't help yourself, can you greenie?"

"w-what?" thomas says nervously, trying to regain his balance.

minho laughs to himself, "i knew this was a bad idea."

emilia scoffs, "don't even."

"i knew i shouldn't have said yes to bringing you in here."

"fuck you." emilia spits at him.

thomas ignores their bickering, taking a step toward the unconscious boy in front of him, "w-what happened to him?" he says, taking a better look at alby, noticing the fresh gash on his head.

"what does it look like?" minho says.

"he got stung." emilia adds, visible frustration appearing on her face as she takes a seat on the ground.

"what happened to his head?" thomas asks.

"i did what i had to do." minho sighs.

a loud screech comes from the distance, the same sound he hears every night.

grievers.

"okay, all right, help me get him up." thomas says, grabbing alby's limp body, emilia quickly regathers herself before coming to thomas' side, helping lift alby off of the ground.

"no, no, no, we gotta go." minho says.

emilia shakes her head, "no, minho," she says, "we are not leaving alby behind."

"the maze is already changing." minho mumbles, visibly going into panic.

"hey minho!" thomas snaps him out of it, "we can't just leave him here."

𖧷

   𝗕𝗢𝗧𝗛 minho and thomas hold alby up off the ground, carrying him through the narrow paths of the maze, while emilia walks ahead of them looking for the best place for them to take him.

already sore from carrying the older boy so far, the two boys place him softly on the ground, leaning him up against a wall.

a screech echoes in the distance, catching the attention of all three, "this isn't gonna work," minho says frantically, "we got to go, we got to go."

"wait, wait, what are you doing," thomas says, watching minho as he starts to walk away from them, "no, minho, no we have to do something, we got to do something. we got to hide him."

"where?" minho grunts.

"i don't know, minho, just think," thomas begs, "you're telling me there's not a single place we can take him?"

minho finally snaps, turning around grabbing thomas by the material of his shirt, slamming his back up against the maze wall, "listen to me shuck-face, all right?" minho whispers aggressively, "take a look around! there's no where to go!"

"here," emilia says, grabbing the attention of both boys. they both look over to her, finding her pointing to a loose vine hanging down the side of one wall, "tie him up, we'll put him up there."

minho goes silent, gaining a smirk from thomas as he pulls himself from minho's grip.

thomas walks over beside emilia, "this will work."

"i know it will," emilia says quietly, "this isn't the first time i've had to do something like this."

thomas nods. it's just now becoming clear that, emilia had to do this once before, and now she's reliving it.

"okay," thomas says, "come on, let get him up."

and before they knew it, both minho and thomas were hoisting alby's body up on a wall. the two boys managing to pull him up pretty high—as high as they possibly could.

emilia tried to help, but minho refused. so instead, she kept a look out for them.

although thomas did want to say something, he was more focused on the whole fear of death by mysterious, screeching creatures aspect, as well as getting alby up and hidden in a safe space.

yet another rumble erupted from maze causing minho to freeze in place.

"what are you doing?" thomas asks, extremely out of breath.

minho's head snaps toward the open area beside them, looking as far as he can into the shadows.

and he saw movement.

"no, no," minho grunts, "we gotta go, we have to go."

"what? no, minho," thomas says, pulling the vine down farther, raising alby up higher, "okay? just a little more."

minho's head snaps back in the direction of the movement.

sharp metal legs, moving almost mechanically, began stepping out of the darkness one by one.

"minho, stay with me," thomas says, "c'mon just a little more."

"i'm sorry, greenie."

"what?"

and with that, minho bolted, letting go of the vine, causing thomas to be dragged forwards to the wall, causing alby to almost fall straight to the ground.

"minho!" emilia shouts, running toward thomas, grabbing the vine to help him.

a screech echoes in the distance as both thomas and emilia let out grunts trying to pull alby back up, this time, sounding a lot closer to the two of them than before.

"shit." emilia mumbles, before grabbing thomas's wrist and pulling him under the vines. the two of them try to be as quiet as possible as the mechanical footsteps of the griever grew closer and closer to them.

suddenly, a metal leg steps right out in front of thomas' vine covered face, causing him to jump. emilia acts on impulse, taking her hand and placing it over his mouth, in a desperate attempt to keep him silent, as well as the both of them alive. the two of them watching in horror as the griever walks by them, letting out low growls each step it took.

both of them held their breath, waiting for the griever to leave. emilia waited until she knew it was gone before moving an inch.

"okay." emilia whispers. she pulls herself forward urging thomas with soft pushes to get up.

once the two of them were standing up, emilia took the vine alby was still hanging from above them, and began tying to a protruding root in the ground. the same horrifying noises of the griever grew closer again, trying desperately to tie the vine as quickly as possible.

"emilia.." thomas whispers.

"hold on."

thomas panics hearing the griever approaching the corner, quickly grabbing the girl and pulling her around a corner just as the griever passes by. he holds her close to him waiting for the grievers noises to cease before looking around the corner to where the griever would be, finding nothing.

emilia lets out a heavy breath of air, running back over to the knot she was tying, making sure it was tight enough to keep alby up.

"c'mon," emilia says quietly, "we have to keep moving, we can't stay here."

thomas nods frantically, following her as she begins to move.

the two of them try to breathe as quietly as possible, taking soft steps as they move. thomas looks around his surroundings, making sure no grievers were near by.

he turns around looking behind him, suddenly feeling something unusual beneath his foot.

emilia hears his footsteps come to a stop. she turns to look at him.

"what are you doing?" she whispers to him.

thomas looks down to his foot, pulling it up slightly off the ground finding a slimy substance stuck beneath his foot. he shakes his foot softly trying to remove it.

a low growling rumbles around them, causing them to stop in tracks.

thomas turns around and looks toward emilia. she sees his eyes fill with fear as he watches string of the same gooey substance drip down from above them, landing directly on emilia's shoulder. both of their heads tilt up, their eyes meeting with the grotesque face of a griever.

without a second thought, thomas grabs emilia, pulling her towards him as the griever drops down in front of them. both of them fall backwards, tripping over their own feet out of fear.

emilia had seen a griever before sure, but this close up? absolutely not. the griever jumps forward toward them. it screeches loudly at the two as they both scramble to their feet, immediately running in the opposite direction, desperately trying to get away from the creature hearing the grievers mechanical sounding footsteps gaining on them quickly.

the two of them manage to turn a corner, losing the creature. but as they run down another empty section of the maze, the griever jumps out in front of them from around a corner. thomas grabs emilia's wrist as they come to a stop, pulling her down a different path, away from the griever.

he keeps his grip on her wrist, making sure she stays with him, which emilia has no problem with in this situation. the last thing she needs to be right now is alone. their feet skid against the concrete floors as they turn another corner, unfortunately into a dead end.

"oh, shit." thomas panics.

emilia turns to look behind them finding the griever crawling out around the corner they just had turned before she feels thomas pull his wrist, urging her to follow him.

he jumps forward, his hand latches on to the vines in front of him and he quickly begins climbing. emilia follows behind quickly. the griever jumps on to the wall, hovering over them. thomas pulls himself up on the solid ledge. he reaches down and grab emilia by the hand, pulling her up beside him. they watch as the griever's metal legs pierce into the ground as it climbs up and over the ledge before sprinting again, jumping over a small gap in the path beneath their feet.

emilia glances behind her, checking to see where the griever is. just as she turns her head back, she feels thomas' arm smash into her chest, stopping her before she falls off the path that sudden came to an end.

they both look down at the far drop beneath them. thomas turns to run back the way they had just came, but instead finds a griever climbing through the walls, growling at them, leaving them with no where to go.

emilia grabs the back of thomas' shirt pulling him back before she lets it go and jumps off the ledge on to the wall in front of the ledge. she grabs on to the vines covering the wall, screaming for thomas to follow.

thomas takes one last glance at the griever crawling toward him before he turns around and runs off the edge as well, shouting loudly as he free falls, grabbing the vines, and landing directly beside her.

they try to keep themselves up, but it doesn't take long before the griever follows their moves, launching itself on top of thomas on the same wall.

it pulls its leg back, a sharp needle slides out of its limb. thomas frantically pushes himself away as the griever stabs its leg into the concrete wall beside him, causing him to lose grip on the vines. thomas falls beneath the griever and emilia, causing it's attention to move from him, to the girl hanging beside it.

the creature crawls over before hovering over her. its sharp legs accidentally cutting the vines the two of them were holding on to, leading them both to scream as they free fall to the ground. their backs hit the ground hard as the vines fall on top of them.

thomas pulls the vines off of him running to emilia to help her next, pulling her up just as the vine covered griever's sharp leg stabs into the ground directly where she was laying.

they both scramble to their feet watching as the griever screeches as it struggles to free itself from being tangled in the vines, before running away as fast as possible.

thomas stops and turns to make sure the griever was still trapped when someone's hands suddenly latch onto his shirt, scaring the absolute shit out him. he turns quickly, finding minho in front of him.

"you're a crazy son of a bitch." minho says as he tries to catch his breath.

emilia stares at him blankly, not saying a word.

all three of their heads turn toward the griever as another growl erupts from the creature before it manages to rip away from the vines that were trapping it.

"okay, c'mon!" emilia shouts as she grabs thomas by the hand.

"follow me, follow me!" minho adds on before the three of them begin sprinting.

the group turns a corner, before echoes off of the walls of the maze.

"okay, it's changing, it's changing!" minho explains.

minho directs them to a cleared out area, "all right, this sections closing. we can lose it down here!" he says before they begin to sprint.

thomas lets go of the girls hand, stopping in the middle of the section. he glances up, watching as the walls begin to close in.

emilia and thomas reach the end of the closing section, turning around to see thomas, still standing at the other end.

"thomas?" emilia says softly, "thomas! what are you doing?" she shouts.

"thomas!" minho yells, "what are you waiting for? get out of there!"

thomas stares at them before he looks to the side, finding a griever growling as it latches to the walls other either side of it, pushing itself toward him.

he stares at the creature, watching it screech at him.

"come on!" he yells at it.

the griever did exactly that.

it lunges itself toward him. thomas frantically turns toward the closing section, sprinting as fast as he possible can.

"come on, thomas!" emilia screams, "don't look back!"

"keep running, thomas!" minho yells, "don't stop!"

thomas, of course, glances behind him, finding the griever directly on his tail, getting closer and closer to him as he runs. he glances up, watching as the walls close in closer together before looking forward toward emilia and minho.

"come on, greenie!" minho shouts, "let's go!"

thomas pushes himself harder, feeling the walls on either side of him press against his body. emilia watches in horror, screaming his name one last time, as the doors come to a close.

𝗔𝗩𝗔'𝗦 𝗡𝗢𝗧𝗘 !

meow

[ 2.3k words ]