Running with you

The code

The heat clung to your skin like guilt. Every burned mark along the wall seemed to whisper your name — not in accusation, but in recognition. As if the Maze itself had been waiting for you to come back and face what you'd helped create.

Thomas didn't speak as you moved through the dark corridor. The only sounds were the hum of decaying electricity and the distant, echoing screech of Grievers somewhere above.

Time was slipping.

01:31:17.

The map room countdown ticked in the back of your mind like a heartbeat out of sync.

You reached the end of the tunnel — a sealed door, rusted and scorched. Beside it: a keypad.

Thomas stepped forward, hands on his knees, catching his breath. "Tell me you know the code."

You stared at the panel.

Six digits.

Six numbers standing between life and death.

Your fingers hovered over the keys, muscle memory twitching. This was familiar. You'd stood here before. In the memory they hadn't shown you — the one buried deeper than the rest.

You closed your eyes.

A voice echoed in your head — cold, clinical.

"Should the subject deviate from protocol, initiate a reset. Code: 7-3-9-2-1-0."

You entered the numbers.

Beep.

ACCESS DENIED.

Thomas swore. "Y/N—"

"Wait," you said, stepping back.

Your mind raced. That voice — it hadn't been talking about escape. It was about containment. Resetting the Maze, not unlocking it.

And then something clicked.

Not numbers.

Names.

You turned to the wall beside the door. It was covered in charred carvings — initials, dates, lines scrawled in soot like the final words of the forgotten. But one line, near the top, stood out. Scratched cleanly into the steel, untouched by the fire.

WICKED LIES

You reached for the keypad again. "It's not numbers. It's letters."

"What?" Thomas asked, breathless.

"It's an alphanumeric lock. They assumed no one would remember." You started typing. "W-I-C-K-E-D."

The panel blinked red.

Then green.

DOOR UNLOCKED.

The door groaned open with a hiss, revealing a narrow stairwell, lit by flickering red emergency lights.

Thomas looked at you like he was seeing you for the first time again. "How did you know?"

"Because that's what this all is," you said, stepping into the stairwell. "A lie wrapped in data. In fear. They built everything around that word. It was never a name. It was a code."

He followed you.

"And what's it supposed to stand for?"

You didn't answer right away. You remembered the training, the reports, the way they drilled it into you before you ever met him.

W.I.C.K.E.D.

World In Catastrophe: Killzone Experiment Department.

You'd hated it then. You hated it more now.

"Something we were supposed to believe was worth dying for," you finally said.

Thomas didn't push. He just kept walking beside you.

You reached the end of the stairwell. A sealed hatch loomed above — bolted shut with a biometric lock.

Thomas reached for it.

It didn't open.

"No good," he said. "Needs clearance."

You stared at the scanner.

You remembered another moment, another room. A woman in a lab coat, pressing your palm against a scanner just like this one.

"You're the key, Y/N. You always have been."

You raised your hand and pressed it flat against the reader.

The scanner blinked.

IDENTITY CONFIRMED — SUBJECT 09 — CLEARANCE: LEVEL OMEGA.

The hatch opened.

A blast of cold air rushed in. It smelled like old metal and something else — something sterile.

You emerged into a chamber of blinking servers, floor-to-ceiling screens, wires looping like veins across the walls. This wasn't part of the Maze.

This was WICKED's control hub.

Thomas stepped in beside you, stunned. "What the hell is this place?"

"The core," you whispered. "This is where they monitored everything. Every Glader. Every trial."

The screens lit up around you.

One showed Minho, still running, sweat and blood on his face. Another showed Newt, now slumped behind a wall, trying to breathe through the pain.

A third showed you.

Footage from weeks ago — in the Glade, talking to Thomas, laughing. Another screen played the moment you kissed him before entering the Maze.

"Why would they record this?" Thomas asked.

You didn't want to answer.

But the system did it for you.

A calm voice filtered through the speakers.

"SUBJECT 09. PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: EMOTIONAL STIMULUS MONITORING. INTERFERENCE LEVEL: CRITICAL. INITIATING FINAL PHASE."

You stepped back.

"No," you said. "No, they can't. I shut the purge down—"

"Not everywhere," Thomas said grimly, looking to a monitor flashing red.

Purge Path: ACTIVE. SOUTH MAZE. GLADER STATUS: COMPROMISED.

You saw it before he said it.

Newt. Still alive. Still trapped.

And the fire system was coming online.

"No, no, no—" you turned to the console. "I can shut it down. I just need time."

Thomas grabbed your wrist. "Then do it. I'll go get him."

"Thomas, if you go back in there—"

"I'm not leaving him," he said. "And I'm sure as hell not leaving you."

He looked at you, just long enough for you to remember everything. The kiss. The hallway. The last time you let him go.

Then he ran.

And you turned to the console, hands flying, desperate, wild — not for the Maze. Not for WICKED. Not even for redemption.

For Thomas. For Newt. For the boys who had suffered while you stayed silent.

You were done being a piece in someone else's experiment.

You were going to break the system.

Even if it broke you first.