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

- THE FIRST CLUE -

"You hope," Winston mutters, half behind me now.

We freeze again. The Griever doesn't move. "Now what?" I ask, heartbeat loud in my ears. "We try and pull it out?"

Thomas nods. "Alright. We all grab a leg," he instructs. We form a rough circle around the crushed body. I reach down and grip one of the slick, ridged limbs. So do the others. There's a grim tension in the air, like we're disturbing something sacred - or cursed. "One, two, three," Thomas counts.

We all heave. At first, it doesn't budge. Then something gives, and we all fall backward as one of the legs pops free with a wet snap. Fry hits the ground hard, groaning. "You okay, Fry?" I ask, stepping toward him.

"Thanks, girl," he mutters, taking my hand. I haul him up. Our gazes drop to the thing we've removed - a full mechanical leg, slick with mucus and blood, one of its joints still twitching slightly. It's heavy. Real. Not just a nightmare anymore.

My eyes narrow at the source of a faint, rhythmic beeping deep in the mess of tissue. I take a step forward. "You going for that," I hear Minho wonder.

"If you're referring to the beeping thing," I smirk, "then yeah." I drop to a crouch and shove my hand into the Griever's center. Warm, sticky fluid coats my arm to the elbow. The texture turns my stomach but there's no going back now. The boys groan behind me, voices raised in protest. "There it is," I breathe, fingers closing around something solid. I yank my arm free, slime dripping from my sleeve. A small, cylindrical device is grasped in my palm - smooth, cold metal with an eerie red light blinking softly on its surface.

"What the hell is that?" Thomas asks, his voice hushed. We all stare at it. Whatever this thing is... it's not just part of the Griever. It's something more. Something purposeful.

I wipe my hand across the slick, grey surface of the metal device. A smear of Griever mucus smudges across the casing, but it doesn't matter - I'm more focused on the small black screen at the center. A red-lit "7" glows through the grime like an eye watching me back. Just below it, a golden label reflects the light, worn but unmistakable:

W.C.K.D

My breath catches. Minho steps beside me, his shoulder brushing mine as he leans closer. "That says what I think it does, right?"

I nod slowly, my mouth dry. The letters are identical to the ones printed across the supplies in the Glade - food boxes, medicine. The damn scalpel. All of it. And now, on this... thing. A piece of a monster. A sudden, violent pain snaps through my head like a hot blade between my temples. I stagger, the world going hazy.

A memory takes me-

Cold, sterile light. A white hallway that feels too narrow. The hum of overhead fluorescents buzzes like a wasp in my skull. The sound of heels clicking on tile echoes closer. My breath fogs the inside of a plastic visor - thick, suffocating. I lift a gloved hand to swipe it clear, but the haze remains.

I've been here before.

A woman appears at the far end of the hallway. She's dressed in white from head to toe, like a ghost stitched together from lab coats and kindness. Her face is soft, almost motherly, but her eyes are hollow. Dead.

"WICKED is good," she says, her voice light, melodic. Too calm.

My heart slams against my ribs like it's trying to break free. I want to run- every cell in my body screams for it - but I can't. My legs won't move. I'm trapped.

On the table at my right side, I see something sharp and glinting. Metal. I look sideways at the scalpel. The same one I woke with in the Maze.