in another life; the maze runner

☆eleven☆

"Who's Teresa?"

"Another girl? This is getting weird!"

"She's just like Mae- maybe the creators sent up a copy."

She heard the voices, but her brain was too fuzzy to focus on the words that they were saying. Her eyes narrowed in on the girl, who was the cause of all this commotion. Frantically, she scrambled forward to the edge of the box, ignoring the insistent questions coming from the Gladers.

Newt, who was standing in pure confusion in the middle of the elevator-like cage, pivoted to glance up at Mae.

"Mae, you know her?" He sputtered, stepping back a bit to better reveal the girl.

Yes- that's definitely her. That's my sister.

She opened her mouth to speak, but hesitated. Who knows how they would react when they found she not only knew her, but that she was her sister. Mae remembered the argument they had had in her dreams, and even though she had no idea of the context, she wondered if it had an effect on how they'd ended up here.

"Mae," Newt prodded.

She looked up from the box and to the several boys, staring at her in anticipation. Her breathing quickened, and her heart pounding in her chest, she made a swift decision.

"No-" Mae blurted. "No, I don't know her..."

Thomas caught her eye. He looked lost, confused and scared. She prayed that he would play along with her charade, but given his recent spontaneous actions, she didn't have much faith. To her sweet relief, he didn't say anything, just kept his eyes glued on Teresa.

"Then why'd you say Teresa?" One boy, who she had come to known as Jack, asked.

Mae squeezed her eyes shut, inhaling a deep breath and searching for her next lie.

"I didn't say Teresa. I said..." Everyone was goggling at her, waiting for her excuse. She opened her eyes, darting them back and forth from Thomas to Teresa.

"She's a- She's a girl. I didn't get to finish my sentence," Minho raised an eyebrow, and Gally crossed his arms. Nobody looked like they bought her story.

"Well, what are you waiting for, get her outta there." Newt broke the silence, and Mae felt herself smile a bit, ever so grateful for his smooth save.

__

After Teresa had been tucked in safely in a bed, she fell into a coma-like state, just the same as Mae had when she had arrived just about a week earlier. Once again, the majority of the Gladers had fallen back into their schedule, doing their jobs as normal despite the new arrival and the threatening message she carried. On top of that, anxiety was growing because the box still hadn't gone back down, which mean they wouldn't be recieving supplies. Mae found it sad, how these boys were so used to change and disaster that at this point, they didn't even think to question it.

After her awkward experience with the group, Mae had retreated to working in the Med-jack hut, keeping to herself on exception to Clint and Jeff, an occasional Slicer coming in with a cut, or a Builder coming in with a bruise.

But still, even as she had her simple work to distract her, she couldn't keep her thoughts from travelling to her sister. She kept wondering if she had made the wrong choice, if she should've come clean to the fact that she did know the mysterious new girl.

"Mae?" Mae looked up from the makeshift shelves she had been tending to one morning, only to see Thomas standing in the doorway of the hut, looking dazed and confused.

Thomas looked dazed and confused a lot of the time, she had come to notice.

"Hi, Thomas." She gave him a weak smile.