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

- ONE OF US -

I look down at the blade in my hand. The metal is scratched. Used. Real. It feels heavier than it should.

When I look up, I see where we are.

A wall. Stone. Rough, weathered, worn by years of hands and names.

There are dozens carved into it. Some etched carefully. Others jagged and rushed. A history written in desperation. I step closer. I see Alby at the top. Newt. Ben. Winston. Names I've heard in shouts across the Glade. Names of people I've met already, even if it's only been a day. But then I see something else. Some of the names are slashed through. Deep cuts across the stone. Violent. Brutal. Like someone couldn't bear to see them anymore. "Justin," I say softly, tracing a name that's been crossed out. "George. Stephen..."

Alby nods beside me. "Dark days," he says again. I hold the knife a little tighter. My throat feels tight, like I've swallowed something sharp.

There's no ceremony to it. No chant or speech. Just the wall, the blade, and the pressure of choice. I lick my lips. They're dry. My fingers tremble slightly, but I don't let the knife drop. I find a patch of untouched stone. Just beside a name I don't recognize - Rob, maybe. I press the blade to the wall.

And I carve.

Slow, deliberate. My name: (Y/n). Each stroke of the knife feels like sealing something permanent. Not a welcome. Not quite a belonging.

But a mark that says: I was here. I am here.

When I step back, the sunrise catches on the fresh cut letters, still rough with stone dust. They shimmer for a second in the light. Then they're just part of the wall. I take a breath, stepping back, but something flickers at the edge of my vision-movement low to the ground.

A small shape scuttles between tufts of grass.

I freeze. "What... is that?"

It moves fast - too fast to be anything natural. Sleek. Metallic. Spider-like legs clicking over the earth. Its body is black, rounded like an armored beetle, and a single blinking red light pulses on its back. Before I can react, it skitters toward a rock and disappears beneath it. Alby sees it too. "Beetle blade," he says, tone flat.

"What does it do?" I ask, unsettled. It didn't feel like a random piece of tech - it felt alive, somehow. Like it was watching.

"No one really knows," he admits. "They came up before the first of us. Same time as the Glade. We used to think they were just for surveillance; spying on us for the Creators. Maybe they are."

"Have you tried to catch one?" I ask.

"Once or twice," he says. "They're faster than you think. And smart. Like they're not just machines, but programmed with instinct. They know when we're looking." I glance back at the rock. Nothing there now. Just grass, dirt, stone. But the memory of its movement sticks with me, like it's still out there, watching from the shadows. "Don't worry about it too much," Alby says, starting back down the hill. "They've never hurt anyone. Not directly, anyway."

I hesitate a second longer, then follow. But I can't shake the feeling that, somewhere in the Glade, something is always watching.

I turn to Alby. He is already halfway back the way we came.

And I follow, the knife still warm in my palm, my name burned into the stone behind me.

~~~

It had been about a week when I realised nighttime in the Glade was a different kind of quiet.

The kind that wasn't heavy, but curious. Like the world had paused its chaos just long enough for the stars to breathe. Crickets chirped in the tall grass, and the moonlight dripped over the treetops, illuminating patches of dirt and stone like scattered lanterns.