ACT I SCENE XX
ANDROMEDA

   CASSANDRA OPENED her eyes, yet again, to a blood-curdling scream. She jolted awake and fell out of her hammock with a grunt. Pushing herself up, she felt a pair of hands pick her off the ground. Minho swatted the flap of the patio cover as he stepped out to the Glade. Cassandra followed him groggily, squinting out at the still-darkened field.

"Who is it this time?" she muttered.

A few of the Gladers were already up and they were looking around in bewilderment. Something didn't feel right, but Cassandra couldn't put her finger on it just yet. Then she spotted Newt walking over from the further row of hammocks near the Gardens.

"The bloody sky is gone!" he yelled, flailing his arms upwards. "And that scream wasn't you, was it, Cass?"

Cassandra shook her head and craned her neck upwards as she realised what was wrong. There was no light. No darkness. No stars. Nothing. There was just a flat alien grey all above them where the sky used to be. She gaped in astonishment and briefly thought that this would be exactly how the start of an apocalypse would look like.

"Must have been the other girl then," Newt said before entering the Homestead.

Minho glanced at his watch and touched Cassandra's elbow to get her attention. "Come on, it's almost wake-up anyway."

"You seriously wanna go into the Maze when there's that over us?" she asked, pointing to the slate above them.

He shrugged. "What else are we gonna do? Maybe something's changed in there too."

They grabbed Thomas for a quick breakfast and equipped him with running gear. Then the three of them went into the Maze. Everything looked distorted in the dull grey light that haunted their every footstep. Cassandra wondered what was happening and thought about the other girl back in the Glade. Undeniably, she was a catalyst of change.

She was running ahead of the boys, absent-mindedly traversing the endless hallways and corridors until she skidded to an abrupt halt. Thomas bumped into her and she grabbed him before he could fall over. She pressed a finger to her lips urgently before he could open his mouth. It was the smell that tipped her off; that repulsive odour of burnt oil and decay. Minho crept around her to sneak a peek behind the wall before pulling back with a firm nod.

"It's just sitting there," he informed them. "Shuck piece of klunk."

"Sitting there?" Thomas repeated.

"Same as the one with Alby and the other one we saw that night in the Maze," Minho told him. "This is the only way to the next Sector, though, so let's just wait it out. We can make a run for it to the Glade if it chases us."

Cassandra peered around the edge and started. The Griever was unfurling its appendages as if it had heard them. "Wait..." Her voice trailed, eyes narrowing. "It's running away!"

"Shuck, let's go!" Minho sprinted after the retreating Griever.

Cassandra hurried after him with Thomas reluctantly on her heels. They ran down numerous passageways, barely catching sight of its tail as it rounded every turn ahead of them. Soon, they were jogging through a long, familiar passageway that led towards the Cliff. The Griever skittered across the ground, flung itself beyond the chasm and disappeared. They stopped to stare in astonishment, mouths hanging wide open.

"Uh... did you guys just see that?" she asked.

"Yeah, I saw it," Thomas confirmed, nodding.

Minho glanced at her. "Hey, this seem familiar to you? The notes from the hiding holes, the Griever that stung Alby. This ain't a coincidence."

Her brows furrowed as she realised that he was right. The notes from the hiding holes did track the Grievers back to the Cliff, and she remembered the Grievers disappearing that night they survived the Maze. She walked over, taking a tentative step closer to the edge. Starlight continued to twinkle from the depths below, which didn't make logical sense. Then she heard a low hum in her ears, like static.

The edges of her vision started to darken and she stumbled. No, not again—

"Cass!" Thomas called out in panic.

Her knees hit the stone floor and she cried out, grasping her head between her hands. Her body swayed precariously at the edge of the precipice and Minho darted forward to grab her. She curled inwards, feet kicking in pain as she twisted in his arms. Thomas dropped down next to them.

"What's wrong with her?" he asked anxiously.

Minho had a troubled look on his face. "I don't know, she gets into these fits..."

Cassandra seized his shirt, fingers trembling as her breaths shuddered. "It's our only way out—the Hole. They'll die in The End, but it's our only way out," she whispered fervently.

"What does that mean?" Thomas questioned with bated breath. "The Hole? The End?"

Minho shook his head. "No clue what she's talking about, dude."

Cassandra turned her unseeing eyes to them. "Push. Open. Gone."

Her ominous words faded into the silence of the Maze as her eyes slid close. Her body stilled, hand falling limply back to her side. Her stilted breaths started to slow and Minho shook her gently. He brushed away the damp hair from her face. After a moment, Cassandra let out a small moan, brows furrowing, and her eyelids slowly opened.

"Are you okay?" Thomas leaned forward keenly. "Do you remember anything?"

Cassandra winced before pushing him away. "Ow. You're making my head hurt more."

"Shuck," Minho breathed out. "I can't believe it. It's been right in front of our face this entire time."

She turned to him, confused. "What's right in front of our faces?"

He gestured towards the Cliff before them. "This is the freaking hole. The one that Nick thought would get us out."

The breath caught in her throat. Of course. It was all starting to make sense now. If only they had figured it out sooner. Nick had died for this. For a truth that had been buried in her head the whole time, clawing to get out. The Grievers, those monstrosities that lurked in the shadows to terrorise them, were the clues they'd been searching for this entire time.

"Okay..." Thomas started slowly. "So the Grievers can escape through the Cliff. Maybe we can too?"

"There you go again with your death wish," Minho chuckled, shaking his head. "But this time, I think you're right. There must be something, like an optical illusion, hiding an exit or whatever."

There was a flurry of movement as Minho rummaged through his pack for a notepad and pencil. He collected pieces of rocks, with Cassandra and Thomas helping him the best they could. They were going to tackle this dilemma that had been nigh unsolvable for the past two years.

"Okay, let's get this right," Minho said. "I don't wanna be the one who messes up when the first shank jumps and falls to his death."

"That shank ought to be the Keeper of the Runners," Thomas said jokingly. "You'd better be holding onto one beauty of a rope."

"Yeah, yeah." Minho rolled his eyes. "Okay, let's take turns tossing them in. Cassie, I want you to sit right here and keep an eye out. If anything looks funny, I wanna know."

"Okay." She perched herself at the edge between them, pencil poised over her notepad.

They started throwing their rocks into the Cliff, one after the other, in a tightly spaced line. It went on in rows; the chunks of stone soared through the air and plummeted with the pull of gravity. Each one continued to fall and fall until it was too far out of their sight. Cassandra tried to concentrate, but with every stone that fell, so did her confidence.

Then she blinked, and Minho's rock disappeared.

"Whoa!" She rubbed her eyes. "Did you guys see that?"

Minho frowned. "We've been throwing klunk over this for years and I've never seen anything disappear."

"Yeah... actually, wait, maybe we blinked funny." Thomas gestured. "Throw another one in."

Minho took a larger stone and flung it at the exact same spot. Cassandra kept her gaze trained on it until it was swallowed up by thin air. "Holy shuck," she whispered, eyes widening, before drawing up a diagram with estimates of the magic rock eating point. Excitement rushed through her veins, interlaced with hope and triumph.

The boys managed to figure out that the invisible hole was about one by one metre in area—just big enough for a Griever to squeeze through with its limbs retracted. Or a body to slip through with ease. Cassandra put her notepad down and simply stared into the Cliff as if she would eventually see through the illusion and figure out its mechanism.

Minho decided to run the rest of the sector to check if anything had changed. But they didn't find anything out of place. By the time they returned to the Glade, the other Runners had already returned ahead of them. They were dutifully sketching out their maps around the table. Lee walked up to them the moment they entered the Map Room.

"Dude, look at this," he said and held up a shiny metal box in his hand. "A Griever was sitting next to the doors to Sector Seven. When it heard me comin', it got up and ran away. This dropped from it."

Cassandra made a disgusted face as she examined the object dubiously. "What the hell are these things doing dropping their klunk all over the place?"

Lee shrugged. "Here." He handed the box to Minho, who opened the rusty hinges. He peered inside, then looked up in consternation.

"An empty box," he deadpanned. "Great. This is so helpful."

"I dunno, man," Lee said. "Thought one of you might know somethin'."

Cassandra stood on her tiptoes and peeked into the simple container. There was nothing in it except for a series of numbers stamped at its bottom.

"Is that like some kind of code?" Thomas asked over Minho's other shoulder. They glanced at him and hummed in thought.

"There are eight numbers," Minho said. "But what do they correspond to?"

"The only patterns in the Maze are the walls moving." Cassandra paused. "But we've already compared each sector. Maybe it's the days?"

"Let's figure this out later," Minho said.

He shut the box with a snap and placed it on the table. Suddenly, there was a commotion outside. Cassandra opened the door to look out curiously. A group of boys had gathered at the entrance of the Homestead and they were yelling loudly. Then someone broke through them, running towards the Map Room at breakneck speed. Cassandra could see tangled dark hair and fiery blue eyes as the figure came closer.

The girl stopped a few feet away, her gaze locked onto Thomas.

"I did it," she said. "I triggered the Ending."

   The girl, called Teresa, was unceremoniously thrown into the Slammer. Her words had resonated within Cassandra—the Ending. She remembered Nick had mentioned something about that before. Did it mean that things were going to end? Would they finally find a way out of the Maze?

She was eating dinner with Lee while waiting for a free bathroom stall when Newt came over. He took the seat opposite her and munched on an apple. "Hey, Cass. So, how did Tommy fare?"

She shrugged. "Eh. He's okay."

"He looks like a lost deer half the time I see him," Lee remarked.

"We didn't see you and Minho yesterday," Newt started with the beginning of a smirk on his lips. "What were you guys doin'?"

"Yeah..." Lee leaned over with a sly grin of his own. "Did anything interesting happen while you were in the Deadheads?"

She was going to murder Lee that night. How did he even know? Her body inched away from them instinctively. "We just talked about, you know, Maze stuff. Then we headed back to rest."

"Restin', huh? That a new slang for shackin' up in the Homestead?" Newt puckered his lips at her and made kissy sounds. "Always wondered if Minho was a good kisser, he always claims he's the best at everythin'."

"I bet'cha lover boy is a real charmer, eh, Cass?" Lee teased.

"Will you keep your voices down?" She turned in dismay and hissed at them, "I am not gonna talk about how good of a kisser Minho is!"

"Oh, so he is, huh?" Newt wiggled his brows at her as Lee guffawed.

She made a strangled sound before hastily leaving. Cassandra made her way towards the bathroom stalls. It was dark inside and the light bulb seemed to have blown. Sighing in annoyance, she took off her clothes and stepped into the shower. A jet of freezing ice-cold water hit her, and she let out a loud yelp at the onslaught.

She turned the knob off, shivering and hugging herself as her teeth chattered. What the hell? If there had been one absolute constant in her life there in the Glade, it had been the warm showers that she looked forward to at the end of a long day.

It made her mad that the Creators would take away that one small comfort they had. As if taking away the sky wasn't bad enough. Then she froze when she realised something. The bulb hadn't blown, the electricity had—it was gone, and so was the heating. Cassandra grabbed hold of the knob and turned it, her fingers slipping against the wet plastic. She turned it until the handle stuck in place, but there was nothing.

Oh, shuck.

She quickly dried herself off before throwing her clothes back on. She hurled the door open and stepped out to find the Glade in complete disarray. Boys were running around with torches in their hands, shouting and pointing in every direction.

Minho ran up to her, his face stricken with terror. She had never seen him this scared before, even when they had been stuck in the Maze.

"The Doors!" he yelled. "They're not closing!"

A ripple of fear went up her spine. He grabbed her hand, pulling her in the direction of the Homestead. The shock left her mind and body numb, and goose bumps rose over every inch of her skin. She could hear her own anxious breaths in her ears. Then a Griever shrieked nearby, dangerously close to the Walls.

This can't be real.

Each vote and comment will be used to power electricity for some hot showers (hopefully).