𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗘𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧 .ᐟ

❛ the griever ❜

𝗧𝗛𝗢𝗠𝗔𝗦 rubs his hands together softly as he leans against the scrappy wooden runners building. emilia sits on the ground beside him, holding a stick in her hand as she traces random lines through the dirt beside her. she glances up to his nervous figure as he fidgets with his hands before breaking the comfortable silence between them.

"why did you do it?" she says.

"what?" he says looking down to her.

"why'd you run into the maze?" she asks again before looking back at the doodles in the dirtz

he glances back to his hands, trying to think of something to use as an excuse, but his mind goes blank, "i don't know."

she nods softly at his answer, "you could've died you know."

"i know." he says softly.

emilia tightens her grip on the stick, letting the two of them fall back into silence.

"i wouldn't have if you weren't there." thomas says, breaking the silence again.

"i know." she smiles proudly at herself.

"i'm sorry about earlier." thomas says.

"what about it?" her smile falters.

"about the rest of the gladers," he explains, "i don't get why they didn't mention anything about you in whatever that meeting was for. i don't deserve all the credit. you did everything in there."

she shrugs softly, "it's okay, honestly, it's not anything i'm not used too," she says, "okay, enough about that, i'm just excited i get another girl in here."

thomas smiles gently, "yeah, you must be happy."

"extremely."

he lets out a puff of air, "are you worried about the note?"

"i don't know really," she says, "i mean, this is the first time i've really been involved in anything in a while."

"right, right," thomas says.

suddenly, the sound of footsteps catches their attention, and minho appears from around the corner. frypan, archie, winston, and zart walking behind him. mimho looks directly at thomas, before his eyes move to the girl sitting behind him.

"no, no," minho says, "she's not coming again."

"you've got to be kidding me." emilia groans.

"she's coming." thomas says.

minho takes a step toward him, pulling him off to the side away from the rest, "thomas, i'm not risking this again." minho retorts.

"i don't get why you won't give her any credit, minho." he whispers, "she helped me in there. she helped more than you know. she wants to come, she wants to help us, minho. she wants to be a runner again. and you can't take that away from her again after you just gave that back."

"thomas-"

"minho." thomas says blankly.

minho glances between both thomas and emilia, he bites his lip softly, furrowing his eyebrows, and squinting as his eyes move from one to the other. his serious expression falters before he nods softly, "fine," he says as he looks to the group of boys that followed him over, "will this be enough?"

thomas swallows hard taking a look at the group, "okay," he nods, "let's go."

𖧷

   𝗧𝗛𝗘 group travels through the maze, following minho as he leads them to where the dead griever was located.

after a few moments, minho comes to a stop. he turns his head to look down a section of the maze, spotting the limb of a griever, sticking straight out of closed off section.

the group slowly walks over to it, staring at the mush of organs seeping from the cracks of the concreate.

"well," archie says, "that's disgusting."

"there's something in there." thomas says, looking into the grievers mangled body.

"you mean besides a griever pancake?" frypan says.

the group stares at it for a moment, before emilia takes a step forward.

"whoa, whoa, whoa, wh-what are you doing?" zart says.

emilia looks at thomas, gaining a nod from him before she sticks her hand into the small crack in between the walls and down into the grievers body. she feels around the unknown area with her hand, tilting her head as she grabs a hold of something.

suddenly, the limbs of the body retract loudly. thomas rushes over to emilia as she rips her hand out from the grievers body, the rest of the boys taking a step backwards as thomas pulls her away from the creature.

"i thought you said it was dead!" frypan shouts.

"was it a reflex?" zart asks.

"you hope." archie replies.

"okay, come on," thomas says, taking a step toward the legs, "let's try and pull it out."

the rest of them follow behind, all latching on to the limb and gripping it tightly.

"all right, ready? on three, one. two. three." he pulls hard on the limb, emilia and the rest of the boys gripping and pulling it as well, managing to rip it from the body. they all tumble backwards, letting go of the leg.

thomas quickly stands to his feet, "you okay, fry?" he says reaching his hand down to help frypan up off the ground.

"yeah," frypan nods, taking thomas' hand, "thanks, brother."

thomas pats frypan on the back softly before immediately turning around to emilia, squatting down beside her, "you okay, emilia?" he says, offering a hand and placing his other hand on her back, helping her up as well.

"i'm okay," emilia takes his hand with a smile, "thank you."

minho pushes himself off of the ground, walking directly over to the limb they had just freed. he reaches down to a piece of metal with a small red blinking light covered in some type of muscle. he lifts it up off the ground with strings of slime dripping off of it. minho looks over to the group before carefully grasping onto the metal piece and pulling it. zart lets out a groan of disgust at the squishing sounds coming from inside.

minho eventually pulls the metal out of the muscle before letting the chunk of griever flesh fall to the floor with a splat. he shakes the excess gunk off of his hand, holding the piece he had pulled out in front of him as it continues to beep.

"what the hell is that?" thomas asks.

minho examines the gray device in his hand. he uses his thumb to move, what he assumes to be a piece of the grievers organs, uncovering a small screen with a 7 on it, underneath of it, the letters W.C.K.D.

"interesting." minho mumbles.

"okay," frypan speaks up, "what ever it is, can we take this up back at the glade? 'cause i don't want to meet this guy's friends."

"he's right, it's getting late," minho responds, "come on."

𖧷

   "𝗬𝗘𝗔𝗛," thomas says, "it was inside a griever."

newt stares at the letters on the device in his hands, "these are the same letters we get on our supplies."

"yeah," thomas says, "whoever put us here obviously made the grievers. and this is the first real clue, the first anything, you've found in over three years, right, minho?"

"right." minho nods.

"newt, we got to go back out there." thomas says sternly, "who knows where this might lead us?"

"come on, newt." emilia adds.

gally stands with his arms crossed, staring at newt intently, "you see what he's trying to do, right?" he says, "first, he breaks our rules, and then he tries to convince us to abandon them totally. what- the rules are the only thing that have ever held us together. why now are we questioning that? if alby was here you know he'd agree with me." gally says before pointing to thomas, "this shank? he needs to be punished."

emilia rolls her neck waiting for newt to respond. newt stares at gally and nods before turning to thomas, "you're right. thomas broke the rules." he says, "one night in the pit and no food."

gally drops his arms in frustration, "oh, come on newt!" he exclaims, "one night in the pit? you really think that's gonna stop him from going into the maze?"

newt sticks out his bottom lip and shakes his head, "no," he says blankly, "and we can't just have non-runners running into the maze whenever they feel like it. so let's make this official then," he explains, "starting from tomorrow, you're a runner."

it goes silent.

minho and archie both glance to gally with smirks plastered on their faces, and emilia's face lights up with a smile. thomas on the other hand, stands there in shock. he wasn't quite sure what he was expecting, but he wasn't expecting newt to give him a chance.

"wow." gally lets out a frustrated breath.

"gally-" frypan reaches a hand out toward gally.

"no, fry." he cuts him off, pushing his arm away from him, but frypan still rushes after gally as he slams the door of the infirmary.

thomas watches as gally storms out of the building before turning back to newt, "thanks, newt."

newt stares at him and swallows hard before turning away from them and walking back over to wick.

𝗔𝗩𝗔'𝗦 𝗡𝗢𝗧𝗘

boring chapter
i need to start writing shorter chapters because i can't have this book be only like 15 chapters

[ 1.5k words ]