RUN: A MAZE RUNNER FAN FICTION

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 11 ||  WILL

"Wake up call!" Thomas's voice woke way before normal wake up time. "Come on kid. You're a runner now. Gotta get up early."

"Why do you guys get up this early?" I groaned as I dragged myself out of my sleeping bag. 

"Come on. Follow me. We gotta get you some better shoes." Thomas said, starting down the hill. I jogged off behind him, trying to shake the grogginess off myself. We went into the Homestead where Thomas walked across the living room and opened a closet. He pulled a cardboard box from one of the shelves. 

"What's your size?" he said.

"Um... 5 I think." I guessed. Thomas fished out a pair of running shoes from the box. They were all black converse high tops. 

"Try those on. They're a 6 but that's the smallest we have." Thomas said.

I took a knee in the closet doorway and slipped off one of my shoes then replaced it with the sneaker. "It fits." I said before putting on the other one.

"Good. Now you're also gonna need one of these." Thomas pulled down another box and handed me a digital wrist watch. "Be careful with this. Only runners get them." 

I slid on the watch and in a few moments, had figured out what all the buttons did. 

- - - - - - - - - - 

Ten minutes later we were standing in front of the East wall, watching it open. I was wearing running shorts instead of the jeans I had before. It actually felt a lot better than the sweaty jeans and stiff shoes. Thomas had shown me the map room- the low concrete building with the vault door and given me two knives with a chest armor piece that they slid onto, saying that you need to be armed even when you go in the maze during the day. He told me all the tips and rules he could before going out into the maze.

"Good luck kid." Minho said, patting me on the back as he passed on the way over to his door. 

"Remember what I told you." Thomas said as he finished stretching. The door was almost fully open.

 "Yeah. Got it." I nodded. I got ready to run. This was where it started. Had I known what being a runner was going to bring to me, I never would have put on those running shoes. I never would have agreed to be a runner. It would have been so much easier to just stay in the Glade. It would have been easier to just die. But I didn't know what was waiting for me. So when Thomas said 'go', I ran full speed behind him into the maze. Back into the maze.