Variables → Group B [AU]

17 → "THE CLIFF THEORY"

17 → "THE CLIFF THEORY"

AFTER THEIR FIRST finding of the letter F, they continued on. Soon enough, the letters began to spell words; Adeline's theory on the Maze spelling something had turned out to be correct, and Rachel's idea continued to work. After finding F, they find L, and O and a C. Soon before Harriet dismissed them for the night, they managed to find a A, T, C and a H. The letters that they'd managed to find spelt two words; CATCH and FLOAT.

Whatever that meant, Adeline had no clue.

"Alright." Harriet said, tiredness evident on her face. "I'm calling it a night. We can't possibly do anymore before we fall asleep, and I don't want to wake up with my face in a pile of our maps, so we'll resume tomorrow. Sonya and the Mappers will go out and do their job, we can't afford for you guys to miss a day."

After everyone agreed, everyone but Sonya and Harriet exited the Keepers House, heading to their hammocks. Adeline's eyes drooped in exhaustion, but she was pleased after the progress they'd made tonight with the maps. Whatever the words they had found meant, it had to be a way out of the Maze. To wherever they came from.

—

The Mappers headed out into the Maze as normal the next morning, and Adeline was woken up by Harriet's daily morning wake up call. She was still exhausted, wanting to go back to sleep and ignore Harriet's wake up, but, unfortunately, that was going to be difficult when Harriet walked around whacking a wooden spoon against a pot, which she figured she'd never get use to. After convincing herself to get up for the day, Adeline headed to breakfast. When she got to their usual table and settled down, she found Rachel stalking towards her, tiredness evident in her features. Behind her was her brother, who settled down beside her. It wasn't surprising they were exhausted; their night was spent late in the Keepers House sketching copies of the Maze sections from the Maps. When Harriet arrived at the table a few minutes later, they directed their conversation back to last night.

"I've decided today we're gonna continue with the maps." Harriet explained. "I was thinking of asking a few Chefs if they'd like to help in between breaks for cooking lunch and dinner. As for Adeline and Rachel, you two are required to work for the day, continue your jobs in the Gardens and the infirmary. Aris can help out, as he hasn't been assigned a job yet. Agreed?"

They all agreed.

—

After breakfast, Harriet gathered a few Chefs to help out, while Adeline and Rachel went separate ways; Adeline headed to the Gardens, Rachel to the Keeper's House. Aris followed Rachel to the Keeper's House, where the Cooks that had been assigned to help headed. Some time before lunch, Aris talked in her head like the night he woke up. Adeline entirely forgot that they could speak telepathically, as she had with Matt from the other Maze. She hadn't talked to Matt in a while, but she wondered if the boys in his Maze had come up with this idea of the Maze being a Code.

Hey, we've found a few more letters. They spelt STIFF and PUSH.

Great, let me know when you find anymore words.

Yeah. This came from Rachel, who Adeline had also forgotten for a moment could speak telepathically, too. Or if you think you've got the code figured out.

Will do.

Once Aris had stopped talking in her head, she attempted to talk to Matt again, to see if his group had had any progress or idea like they had.

Matt? Can you hear me?

Adeline waited, but his voice didn't come. She tried again, and again, but he didn't reply. Like he couldn't hear her.

Finally, she gave up calling for him.

—

Sometime before dinner, right as Adeline was finishing up in the Gardens and the Mappers had come back from the Maze, Aris alerted her that they'd found the rest of the code. By the time Adeline got back to the room, she found Harriet, Rachel, Aris and Sonya waiting for her, but no signs of the any of the Cooks who helped figure out the other words. Harriet would've let them off to go cook dinner.

"We found all the words." Aris said the moment she walked in. "Six words."

Aris handed Adeline the notepad they'd written the six letters on; each word was scribbled in blue pen.

FLOAT
CATCH
BLEED
DEATH
STIFF
PUSH

"The Maze has been repeating those words for months." Harriet spoke up. "Right as it gets to the word PUSH, it seems to go a whole week without a word, and then it starts off with the word FLOAT."

"It appears that's the order of those words." Aris confirmed.

"I wonder what these words mean?" Adeline pondered.

"We're not sure, but that's not all." Harriet said. "Sonya, tell 'em what you told me."

"Today while running the Maze, one of the Mappers — Louisa — and I managed to follow a Griever, where we followed it to an end of a Cliff inside the Maze. We watched as it jumped over the Cliff." Sonya retold.

"Wait." Rachel spoke up in realisation. "Are you saying —"

"Yeah." Sonya nodded. "We found the place where the Grievers must go, where they live. Or leave the Maze."

"So, if they can leave the Maze that way ..." Aris spoke up.

"That means ..." Adeline said, speaking up. "So can we."