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

- NOT THE END -

I flinch.

The crack of the gunshot rips through the air, too sharp, too final. A sound that marks the end of something. I turn my head just in time to see the blood spatter across the screen, painting it like a grotesque canvas before it blinks to black.

She's gone. Dr. Ava Paige - the woman who spoke to us like we were precious data points, the woman who calmly explained the destruction of our world - shot herself like it meant nothing. Or maybe like it meant everything.

My breath shakes. My knees want to buckle.

Then... I think I see her.

Across the wide, broken room, near the far wall - her body. Slumped in her chair in that pristine white lab coat, head twisted at an impossible angle, hair still perfectly pinned like she hadn't just ended her life. Her blood stains the floor beneath her, dark and spreading.

It's her. The woman from my fragmented memories. The one who smiled down at me when I was hooked up to wires. Who whispered words I never understood but felt deeply. She was part of the Maze. Part of our suffering.

And now, she's just... dead.

Thomas moves beside me, silent. Then the others. We all walk forward, one by one, like mourners at a funeral we never agreed to attend. No one speaks. There's nothing to say.

The room hums with leftover static from the monitor. Somewhere behind us, the siren finally dies down, leaving a silence that somehow feels louder than the alarm ever did. We reach her. Her corpse. She lies face down and in fact I don't even recognise her with such damage done to her head. I look at her, but I don't feel the satisfaction I expected. Not closure. Not even vengeance. Just a hollow, aching confusion.

What does any of this truly mean?

A buzz disturbs my thoughts.

I spin around as a door to our right unlocks with a low, mechanical whine. The metal doors split slowly open, revealing a long, sterile hallway, lit by pale white lights that hum faintly above.

We stare at it.

The corridor is silent. It stretches out ahead like a path into a dream - or maybe a nightmare. The floor is smooth, clean. No more blood. No Grievers. No WICKED. Just a hallway.

Escape?

Freedom?

"Is it over?" Chuck's voice trembles. He inches closer to me, his hand clutching my sleeve.

We don't answer. We just... stare. "She said we were important..." Newt mutters, voice so low it barely reaches us. His brow furrows. "What are we supposed to do now?"

His question floats in the air, unanswered. Thomas looks at him, at me. The others slowly turn toward us too. I swallow hard. Thomas shakes his head. "I don't know," he mutters.

They wait. For someone to say something. For a decision. For a direction. So I give it. "We get out of here," I say. It feels like a promise.

I take the first step.

"No," someone says.

We all stop.

My boots skid slightly on the floor. The hallway before us - the hallway to freedom - seems to stretch out even further now, farther away than it ever was. The light flickers behind me, suddenly colder. More distant. We turn in unison.

Its Gally.

He's standing in the room we thought we could leave behind. Silhouetted in the fractured light, barely more than a figure - but unmistakable. His voice is broken. His face is worse. Twisted. Wild. Tear-streaked and contorted with something deeper than pain... madness. His eyes shimmer with something sick. Something broken.