𝗦𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗮𝘄 🆁🅴🅳 - ᴀ ᴍᴀᴢᴇ ʀᴜɴɴᴇʀ ꜰᴀɴꜰɪᴄ

Chapter Nine

Minho's forehead pressed against the cool surface of the Maze's wall. He slammed a fist against it as if trying to force it to open back up, but instead he was left with sore knuckles and despair comparable to drowning.

He was locked in the Maze with monsters because of another monster and her idiotic arrogance. Which one was worse, he had yet to decide. He was fine. This was fine. He just had to do what he did best; run.

A wet grating sound rumbled down the corridor and Minho cursed beneath his breath. Apparently, he'd better start running sooner than later. The Griever's head jerked in his direction as Minho took off down the hall. It let out a squeal, sucked in its spikes, and somersaulted after him.

"Shuck, shuck, shuck, shuck, shuck!" He yelled, no longer caring who- or what- heard. He was already dead, so what was the point? "Shuck you, Gibson!"

As if in response, a feminine scream that could only belong to one cut through the air. Well, unless Frypan had somehow gotten into the Maze, but Minho was pretty sure it was Thea. The sound- terrified and enraged- was enough to make Minho's heart skip a beat and his breath to catch in his throat. She was on her own. He didn't owe her anything. She got them both into this mess and neither would be getting out. He wasn't going to waste his last moments on her.

The Griever was gaining on him. Minho turned the corner sharply, nearly tripping over himself as his foot skidded too far to the left, but caught himself before falling. Not that it mattered. To Minho's distress, he'd reached a dead end.

The floor dropped off to a giant chasm, the Cliff. At least now- he thought, looking on the brightside for once- he could choose how he died; being mauled to death by a monster or jumping off the Cliff into whatever was hidden in its depth. Though he liked the idea of being able to take matters into his own hands, jumping was a sore subject to Minho. As he reached the edge of the Cliff, Minho turned to face the Griever. He planted his feet and clenched his jaw in a semblance of courage. The Griever flew at him- a giant, spikey slimeball prepared to flatten him into a punctured pancake- but at the last second, Minho threw himself onto his side and the creature sped straight over the edge.

For a moment, Minho was too stunned by his impeccable instincts to move. He lay on the stone ground and panted in a weak attempt to reclaim the breath that had been knocked out of him by the fall. Minho Lee- the first Glader to get rid of a Griever for good. It'd look good on a plaque, he thought while brushing a hand through his hair. Would the Creators send one down? Preferably gold, but he could force one of the Builders to make one out of wood if he had to.

Thea screamed again, but this time it was a wounded sound that beckoned an annoyed grumbling noise from the back of Minho's throat.

"Alright, alright!" Minho huffed back even though the likelihood of her being able to hear him, let alone listen, was next to zero. "Your knight in shining armor is on his way to save the damsel in distress from the certain death she asked for! Women- always changing their mind."

Minho pushed himself up, groaning at the pang in his ribs, and jogged back down the corridor he'd come from. They didn't call it a maze for nothing. He followed her voice, getting turned around multiple times by dead ends and rotating walls while trying to avoid getting crushed.

When she finally came into view, an audible gasp escaped Minho's mouth without his permission. Thea sat against the left wall, curled into herself, while carnage lay scattered all around her in heaps of goop-covered metal. There were almost half a dozen carcasses- most, no doubt, attracted by the noise she must've been making when fighting them off. The sickly sweet smell of vomit polluted his nostrils, no doubt from the puddle beside Thea. Her head was buried in her arms, flattening a part of her poofy hair awkwardly so it resembled the mane of a lion. Hair like hers needed to be treated nicer than that, he thought.

"Well, I've been shucked and gone to heaven."

Maybe Minho's name wouldn't be the one on the plaque.

Thea's head shot up at the sound of his voice. "What are you doing here? Why aren't you dead yet?"

"I could ask you the same thing," Minho countered, planting his hands on his hips. He tried to bury his awe beneath a sassy tone, but it was just about as well hidden as the red in Thea's bloodshot eyes. She'd been crying.

"Are you here to gloat?" Thea said. "Because if so, you might as well leave now 'cuz I don't wanna hear it. I found your blood thirsty monsters. Go ahead, say I told you so."

Something in her voice lessened the appeal of doing just that.

He nodded to the carnage and asked, "How'd you do it?"

But, before Thea could spit out a haughty retort, they were greeted by one of the Griever's brothers, keen on exacting revenge on the girl who killed its family. And, apparently, her companion.

The Griever screeched in fury and charged at the Gladers. Its twin answered the call and rounded the corner behind them, trapping Minho and Thea between two deadly beasts.

"Great," Thea said, "now look what you've done!"

Minho scoffed and shot her an appalled glance. "How is this my fault? I- whatever, there's no time to argue. We've got to get to the Cliff."

"And how do you suggest we do that?" She said.

Luckily- or unluckily- for Minho, he didn't have to give her an answer that he didn't have. The Grievers were closing in. Thea unleashed a grotesque battle cry and charged the nearest creature, who was all too pleased to have its prey come to it rather than having to waste time chasing it down. Minho watched in terror and screamed, "What is it with you and the death wish?"

"Shut. Up!" She roared. Thea dove to the ground, feet first, as the monster reached her and grabbed hold of one of the creature's spikes before it retracted. Then, she disappeared from view beneath the Griever's fleshy midsection.

Time stopped. She had not just done that, had she? But the girl was buried under the goop illuminated in blue light. The brown of her skin could be seen through translucent flesh as confirmation, but the blob that was Thea wriggled. How she was alive was beyond Minho's explanation, but all the spikes except those on the sides had been retracted so the creature could roll smoothly without getting caught on ivy while it hunted only to shoot back out once they met open air rather than the ground. Minho supposed she hadn't been skewered to death, but there was no way she could breath in all that slime.

The Griever didn't stop rolling, however. It ignored the girl that had slipped beneath the crack between the slug-like front and rear, seeing as she was a finished target and realigned itself to charge Minho. The boy stood in the middle of the corridor, tapping his foot anxiously and fighting every instinct that begged him to run, as the two creatures closed in on him. When the one without a... barnacle clinging to it was mere inches away from skewering Minho, he jumped aside so it flew straight past him.

Thea's mount, however, simply adjusted its trajectory. Minho started to jump out of the way, but was met by the incredibly solid surface of the wall on either side of him. Somehow, in the time it'd taken for Thea to get herself absorbed by the Griever and now, Minho had managed to run straight into a corner. He was trapped.

All at once, the blue glow of the Griever's light force went out and it rolled once more before splaying out on its back. Thea shot up, gasping for breath, and shoved herself off its slimy belly. She was alive. And Minho was alive because of her.