Thomas Brodie Sangster Imagines

Newt//Remember Me

Word Count:3590

**********

I picked at the nasty food on the tray before me, trying to drown out the noise of the other teens in the large cafeteria. I was sitting alone, as usual, but not because anyone else tried to exclude me. I didn't want to be with them. I wanted my friends back.

Up until a couple months ago, I had been in a place like an open field called the Glade, surrounded on all side by a huge Maze. I was there with 50 other people- only boys- and we all worked together to survive. For the most part, it was nice. Most of the boys were kind and we were able to avoid danger for the most part.

I served as a Runner- someone who would go out into the Maze each day to look for a way out. Each day we would leave early in the morning and come back in the evening before the doors would close. Until one day, I didn't. I encountered a Griever in the middle of my route that day and did my best to fight it off, but it wasn't enough. It beat me up pretty badly, and then, instead of killing me, it dragged me through the corridors of the Maze. I lost track of the turns it made, and somehow, we ended up in a laboratory. I was suddenly surrounded by a bunch of doctors and scientists in lab coats, and then they gave me some sort of anesthetic and I passed out.

By the time I woke up, the doctors had patched up my wounds and two guards were dragging me through long, drab hallways. They left me in a large room filled with bunks, a bathroom in one of the corners. But all the beds were empty. It was only me.

And that's how it was for several weeks. I was alone, only leaving the bunk room to go to meals, returning immediately after.

Eventually, other groups started to show up. I found out that they were other groups from different Mazes. They had been a part of their own experiments. And finally, I had hope. I had hope that one day, my group would show up, and I would see them again. But day after day passed and my friends never showed up.

One day, as two guards were escorting me to my room after lunch, I overhead the two guards talking about a development in Maze A, the Maze I had come to know as my own. My ears perked up at its mention, and I listened closely to their conversation. But my heart dropped hen realized what they were saying.

The people controlling the Maze, controlling the experiments, had found some "promising candidates" for what they called "Killzone patterns" in Maze A and were planning to leave the Doors open at night at the nearest time possible, allowing the Grievers to go on a rampage within the Glade.

And then the realization set in:

My friends... they were all going to die...

It was all I could do to make it back to my room without collapsing. Once I finally made it there and heard the click of the lock behind me, I dropped onto the only bed in the room with wrinkled, untidy sheets- the one I had claimed as my own.

That night, I cried myself to sleep, just like many nights before.

As time went on, I continued to isolate myself from the other subjects and the groups continued to filter in and out of living in the facility. Each meal, then names of ten or so people would be called, and they would be taken to the "safe haven." No one else was in the facility for long, as they were all eventually taken on to greener pastures.

But not me.

I marked it off as another one of their Variables, another way to test me. Keep me around, alone, and let everyone else move on.

Until one day, I realized they kept me around for a reason.

I placed the plate of unsavory looking food on my tray as I did every day, three times a day. Then, I turned to walk to my lonely spot as usual. When I lifted my eyes to look where I was going, my blood ran cold, and my heart stopped. I didn't even realize the tray had slipped from my fingers until it fell to the floor with a loud bang.