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

- A BONFIRE -

The sun was melting into the horizon, bleeding orange and rose across the sky like it had been set on fire. The shadows of the Maze stretched longer and longer until the stone walls looked like teeth ready to clamp shut. And then - just like this morning - those walls moved. A grinding groan echoed across the Glade, louder than anything else. The giant doors shuddered and began to close.

Except this time, I wasn't out there.

I was in here. On this side.

The noise was thunder in my bones. The last crack of sunlight vanished between the slabs of stone before they sealed together, and a strange finality settled over the Glade. The way the boys around me barely looked up told me this wasn't new. But to me, it felt like a cage locking shut.

That Maze has given me no answers - but it means something. I can feel it in the way my chest ached as I stared at the closed doors. I wasn't supposed to be inside these walls. Not yet. Not like this.

"Hey." Alby's voice pulls me back. I turn. He's grinning. "You remember what I said earlier?" He asks, resting a hand on my shoulder.

"About... something happening tonight?" I say cautiously.

He laughs. "Time for a party, Greenbean."

A party? I blink, confused, as a shout goes up from a cluster of boys across the field. "Bonfire!" Someone yells.

Alby gestures for me to follow. We cut across the clearing, and I find myself swept into a current of noise and motion - boys hauling firewood, setting out logs in a circle, someone dragging battered bucketstoward the center. The whole Glade is changing its rhythm.

I follow Alby to a squat wooden building on the edge of the field. The scent of something warm and spiced wafts out the open window, and I peek inside. There is only one person bustling around a hotplate, stirring something in a massive pot with a wooden spoon. "Does he need help?" I ask, glancing at the group of boys lingering nearby.

A voice chuckles behind me. "You're the first to ever ask that." I turn. Newt stands a few feet away, arms folded over his chest, watching me with amused curiosity. The firelight catches his face just right, painting his cheekbones in gold. "That's Frypan," he adds.

"But you can call me Fry!" the dark-skinned boy calls from the kitchen window, shooting me a wide grin. "Get her a bowl, Newt. Girl's gotta eat."

Newt shrugs and wanders off to do just that. When he comes back, he hands me a chipped bowl piled high with some kind of stew and a chunk of warm, buttered bread. The food smells amazing and my stomach actually growls in approval.

We move to sit on one of the logs circling the bonfire. Other boys gather around, eating, laughing. It feels like a strange kind of family - messy, loud, but familiar for them.

Before I can get too comfortable, two boys approach. One of them is tall, with a square jaw and a confident smirk. The other hangs back slightly, watching me from under long lashes. "Hey, Greenie," the first one says. "I'm Clint. I run the Med-Tent."

I glance at the quieter one. "Jeff," he says shyly. "I'm a Med-Jack."

Clint gestures with his spoon. "It's always good to have extra hands. You ever patched up a wound before?"

I shrug. "Not that I remember."

"Well, if you've got a stomach for blood, we could use the help," he tells me. "Just think about it."

"I'll see," I say, smiling a curious sort of grin.

Newt chuckles beside me. "Let her enjoy the evening before you start putting her to work."