IT STARTED WITH A MAZE - Newt x Reader (F)

- BOOK ONE : THE MAZE -

He holds out a hand to me, his palm scarred in places, but not worn like Alby's or Minho's. "Greenbean, meet Newt," Alby says, his tone casual but definitive. I take Newt's hand - shaking it feels like something I'm supposed to do. Like muscle memory. It's something, at least. Some little anchor to normalcy, however fake. His grip is firm, steady. Not trying to prove anything. Alby's voice cuts back in. "When I'm not around, he's in charge."

I nod, trying to make sense of that. Newt doesn't look like someone who'd order others around. But maybe that's the point. My gaze catches on the handle of a weapon strapped over his shoulder - long, metal, heavy-looking. Something tells me he knows how to use it. Newt follows my line of sight and lets out a dry chuckle. "It's a good thing Alby's always around," he says with a faint smile. "Means I get to be lazy." Then he looks at me a little closer. "Although I genuinely think you've got the chops to be a runner. Might even give Minho some competition."

I blink. "A runner?" The word flickers in my mind. That's what the boy Minho had said earlier, hadn't he? But it hadn't meant anything then. Now it clings.

Newt seems like he's about to explain, but Alby steps forward slightly, voice low. "Newt, do me a favor. Go find Chuck."

Newt looks between the two of us, something unspoken in his gaze. "I should also get Clint or Jeff for her arm," he says. He nods to the cut across my bicep, now crusted and sore, blood dried into a stiff sleeve. Alby nods but says nothing. Just stares off in that leader-ish way again. "Alright," Newt says, but he walks away like he didn't want to.

Alby turns back to me and claps a hand on my shoulder - not harsh, not gentle either. "Look, I'm sorry to rush this," he says. "But when the order of things is interrupted, people get out of line. And disordered people become a problem." His words rattle around in me like stones in a tin. Disordered people become a problem. I don't know what that means exactly, but I don't like it. "We've got something planned for tonight," he says, already walking. I follow. There's a structure up ahead-a treehouse, almost. Ladders built from lashed wood and rope climb up the trunk of an enormous tree, winding toward a platform overhead.

The whole thing looks unstable, like it should collapse under its own weight. But something about it is... beautiful. Raw. It's been built with nothing but what they had-wood, rope, sweat. There's a rough elegance to it, every knot and nail a sign of persistence.

"You're not afraid of heights?" Alby asks.

I shake my head before I think about it. The truth is-I'm not. Looking up at that platform doesn't make me nervous. If anything, I want to climb. Like I need to. But I don't know why. I don't know where that urge comes from.

So I say nothing. Just follow him up.

The ladder sways under our weight, but the boards hold. My fingers find grooves in the bark that feel like they've been worn in by a hundred other hands. At the top, we step out onto the platform. It creaks softly beneath us.

And the view-

The Glade stretches out below like a strange, self-contained world. Boys are scattered across the clearing-some dragging tools, some hauling buckets from a well, others tending to a small pen of goats. Trees border the far side, tall and rustling. A garden takes up one corner, the neat rows jarring against the wild overgrowth beyond it.

But my eyes won't stop flicking between two things: the Box at the center. The Maze at the edges.

"So you're stuck here?" I ask quietly. Not we. I'm not one of them. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

Alby breathes in slow, like the weight of everything down there sits on his shoulders. "It's all we've got," he says, not bitter, not hopeful 1 just matter-of-fact. "But we've worked hard for it. If you respect this place, you and I'll get along just fine."