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

- A WAY IN -

We race through an old industrial zone - low factories, gutted warehouses, tangled scaffolding draped in black netting. The metal catwalks above us creak like ghosts. A few broken windows glint in the darkness, jagged and empty.

"Just up there," Gally calls quietly, pointing ahead as he picks up speed.

We round a corner and I nearly stumble to a stop.

Dead ahead stands the tall cement wall - smooth, hulking, windowless. It looms above us like the edge of the world.

My chest tightens. "I thought we wanted to stay inside," I say, panting slightly. "Not get out again."

"You'll see," Gally replies. He crouches low, then laces his fingers together into a makeshift step. "You're up, (Y/n)."

I nod. Newt comes up behind to give me a little balance, and I press my boot into Gally's palms. With a push, I'm up - fingers scrambling for the top edge, then swinging a leg over. The concrete scrapes my knee, but I make it. "Newt," I say, turning and reaching down. He grabs my forearm. I'm ready for his right hand, but he offers the left.

He's always been right dominant.

Still, I grab tight and don't let the surprise show on my face. I hoist him up until he swings a leg over and settles next to me on the ledge.

Thomas is next. He waves off Gally's helping hands and just jumps. Newt and I both reach down and catch him, pulling him up without ease due to a lack of warning given.

Gally goes last - and of course he makes it look simply, vaulting up like he's done this a thousand times. He lands beside us, crouched low, a grin flashing through the dark.

We scale the wall in silence, except for the sound of boots hitting concrete and the soft scrape of skin or fabric against rough stone. I try to ask something - maybe about how much farther, or what exactly we're doing - but Gally snaps his fingers at me without even turning around. "Quiet," he hisses, barely above a breath.

I press my lips shut.

The wall isn't smooth like I imagined. It's a weird architectural - - jagged and oddly geometric, like someone had tried to design something brutalist and futuristic at the same time and gave up halfway. There are ledges jutting out in places, long concrete platforms like teeth, and crooked metal staircases welded at strange angles. Ladders appear sporadically, some bolted to the wall, some old and rusted and shaking under our weight.

It's not a clean climb. It's a patchwork scramble - staircases that start in one direction before veering sharply another way, narrow walkways with no railing, and strange gaps where we have to leap or boost each other across. Every level brings new vertigo. The roads below shrink into a blur of dim orange and red hues - one wrong step and it's a long way to fall.

We keep going. Higher and higher.

By the time we reach the level Gally's aiming for, my legs burn and my chest feels tight. I lean against a wall and press the back of my hand to my forehead, trying to keep my breath quiet.

Newt exhales beside me, barely louder than the wind. He's flushed and sweating but steady. Thomas crouches low, flexing his fingers as if resisting the urge to run again, to act. Gally is already pressing forward. "Just this way," he says.

We follow him up one last narrow staircase, this time one that curves back into the wall rather than away from it. The stairs disappear behind a door made of dense reinforced metal. Gally opens it slowly, and for the first time, we enter inside the wall.

The air changes.

It's colder. Still. The sound of the city dims behind us, muffled by concrete and steel. The space inside feels strangely open with crisscrossing beams above, and a grated floor beneath us that clinks quietly with every step. The staircase loops around until I'm unsure what way we face. Eventually it levels out.