"Welcome to the Glade, Greenie. Ain't no way back." -Chuck
________________________________________________________
The footage pans out on the Homestead, where the Gladers are having a gathering. Boys are running in and everyone is talking over each other, trying to get everyone's attention.
"Oooo what's going on here?" Lydia asked. She wasn't above some good gossip and she knew it.
Gally is the one to shut everyone up in the end, "Things are changing. There's no denying that. First, Ben gets stung in broad daylight. And now our Greenie here has taken it upon himself to go into the maze."
"Okay, and?" Isaac asked, still being as sarcastic as ever.
Thomas looks up but doesn't say anything.
Frypan gasped melodramatically and everyone (Except Janson and slightly Paige) looked at him in worry, "Thomas keeping his trap shut?! Impossible!" The boy in question blushed as everyone laughed at his expense.
"Which is a clear violation of our rules here." Gally continues.
" Really? Really?" Aris asked, looking more than a little annoyed.
"He saved Alby's life!" Scott called out to the screen.
Then, Frypan joins in with his input, "Yeah, but he saved Alby's life."
"Exactly!"
Stiles laughed at Scott's antics.
"Did he?" Gally questions.
This made everyone not from the two mazes think. Was he going crazy? Was he in a lot of pain? Is that why Minho knocked him out?
Newt is shown leaning on a wooden structure; an unreadable look on his face. He shifts but continues to listen to Gally. (For some stupid reason.)
"You look so annoyed, and I'm living for it!" Harriet laughed, Sonya with her.
Some were beginning to realize just how similar Newt and Sonya were looking but they ignored it for now.
"Yeah, it's not so fun when you have to deal with the wrath of an annoyed leader Newt and an over-controlling Gally." Said Winston. Everyone jumped, not remembering that he was there because he was so quiet this whole time.
The Group A Gladers all nodded knowing that Newt can be mean and vicious when he wanted to be.
"For three years," Gally holds up three fingers, "We have coexisted with things, and now you've killed one of them." Minho and Winston are shown looking at Thomas with the same indecipherable looks.
Some boy in the audience says, "It's true." Softly.
"Okay, who said that?" Thomas said, looking at the Gladers.
Chuck turned to him and responded, "I think it was Abe or John but I'm not sure."
Thomas nodded.
"Who knows what that could mean for us?" Gally continues.
"That you're gaining control and the upper-hand on whatever this WICKED thing is." Chris answered logically.
All the Survivors shivered at the name, even though it wasn't cold.
"Well, what do you suggest we do?" Newt asks, looking annoyed.
"He has to be punished." Gally concludes.
Outcries could be heard from the audience before even the people in the footage had time to react.
This causes a commotion from the crowd, loudest being Chuck, "Woah, woah, come on! Gally, come on, he killed a Griever!"
"I agree. He should be punished." Janson said curtly with a slight sinister smirk.
Suddenly, Thomas fell to the floor gasping for air and pulling at his neck, trying to get the invisible noose off of his neck. Meanwhile, Jansons' smirk just deepened and deepened.
Chancellor Paige was deeply confused about what was happening to Thomas. She may have sent him into the trials, but when he was 10, Thomas was her favorite kid to come and get for the testing they were doing to try and understand what made Munies so special. She never had to fake a smile around him. Until he started asking too many questions, and kept rebelling.
She was pulled out of her thoughts when Janson started talking. She noticed that Thomas was getting redder and redder from the lack of oxygen even though he was gasping for it. She also noted that Newt, Lydia, Minho, Scott, Jorge, and Brenda were all there somehow touching Thomas while everyone was standing up still worried for what was happening to him.
"When you lot were unconscious, we had a surgery to put the chip back into your neck." He explained.
Ava was shocked that he did this without her consent or permission she shot him a glare and started to stand up.
"Teresa, you can stop now! Let the poor boy have some oxygen before you kill him!" Janson laughed like that was funny.
Before he stopped gasping, though, Lydia had looked at his neck. She saw the chip outline and the tattoo.
'To be killed by Group B'
She started sobbing and when Scott noticed it he looked at Stiles with tears in his eyes. Then, the glossy eyes changed to hard, bright red ones.
He charged at Janson but Allison stopped him by jumping in front of him, "What happened to no killing?"
"Screw that! Did you see what he did to Stiles!?" Allison nodded but kept quiet and hugged Scott to get him to calm down.
Melissa joined in the hug, tears in her eyes, at what had happened to her adoptive son. These people are cruel! She thought, squeezing tighter.
In about ten minutes, Thomas was back in his seat, panting like crazy, but becoming less and less paler by the minute.
Minho was rubbing his back while sending disturbing glances to Rat Man, meanwhile, Scott and Newt were conversing in a corner about slow and painful ways to kill Janson with Lydia putting in input at times.
Teresa, in the back room, unpaused the footage, yet again, when everyone was back in their seats and they had all made sure Stiles was okay.
Newt shifts again, "Minho. You were there with him. What do you think?" Newt asks the runner.
"Smart. Asking the only other person that was there what really happened!" Lydia said, being passive aggressive to Gally. The latter just sunk lower in his seat.
Minho stands up and sighs with everyone listening intently, "I think that in all the time we've been here, no one's ever killed a Griever before." Thomas looks worried as Minho takes a pause, contemplating his next words, "When I turned tail and ran, this dumb shank," Minho points at Thomas, "stood behind to help Alby. Look, I don't know if he's brave or stupid," This causes some chuckles to arouse.
"Definitely stupid!" Jackson says, earning a few glares.
"But whatever it is, we need more of it. I say we make him a runner." Minho finishes.
"Yes!" Scott exclaimed. He paused and thought about it and began to say, 'Wait, no-" but he was cut off by the footage.
Thomas looks at him curiously while everyone else, after taking a moment to digest what he was saying, calls out. Some against the notion and some for.
"A runner? What?" Frypan asks from behind Newt. Meanwhile the latter had a very amused look on his face at the idea and the commotion it was causing.
"And what's so wrong with me being a runner?" Thomas turned to look at Frypan who was blushed at himself on screen.
"Nothing.." He replied almost sheepishly.
"Minho, let's not jump the gun here!" Frypan said.
Meanwhile, in the audience Chuck was trying to start a 'Thomas' chant, but failing miserably, "Thomas! Thomas! Thomas! Thomas!..." He drifts off.
"Well, nice to know someone believed in me." Thomas reached back and ruffled the boy's hair because Chuck was sitting in the seat a row behind Thomas.
"Calm down, alright." Newt tries to keep the peace but again, Gally manages to quiet the group, "If you want to throw the newbie a parade, that's fine! But if there's one thing I know about the maze, it's that you do not...."
Gally never finished because an alarm started to ring out through the Glade.
"What is that?" Malia asked, "It sounds so familiar."
The Gladers shivered at the alarm of the Box, while the scorch people and Beacon Hills folks just shrugged.
Newt and Gally shared a look of alarm before running out of the Homestead.
"It's love!" Minho laughed and Newt reached over and proceeded to smack the runner in the back of the head.
Thomas got up behind them, a confused look on his face.
"Like a true Greenie!" Gally started laughing hard and his statement made Frypan, Minho, Newt, Chuck, Alby, and Winston to chuckle.
Everyone seemed to quickly follow Newt and Gally out, calling out things like, 'Hurry up!' and 'Come on!'
Sonya, Harriet, and Aris were watching closely. This had, of course, happened in their maze too, but they wanted to see how it played out in their version of the maze.
Thomas, Chuck, and Minho ran out of the Homestead looking intently at the source of the sound, "Okay, okay, wait, I know that sound!" Thomas says.
The Pack was racking their brains to find where they had heard that sound.
"The Box- It's coming back up!" Chuck tells Thomas.
"I thought it only came up once a month." Liam said, confused.
"That's why we were freaking out." Minho rolled his eyes.
"It shouldn't be." And with that Minho starts running towards the center of the Glade.
The mechanical doors to the Box open, and Newt and Gally are the first ones to get there.
They share another look before hopping down and opening the grate doors to the Box. All the boys start gathering around the Box and Newt jumps in. Frypan calls out, "Newt, what do ya' see?"
Newt looks at them, "It's a girl." The disbelief evident in his voice. This causes the circle around the metal contraption to tighten, everyone wanting to see if it's true.
Astute observation, Newt. Thomas flinched at the sudden buzz of her voice in his head. Some people sent concerned glances in his direction, while Janson smirked as he knew what Teresa was doing.
When Thomas didn't respond, Teresa tried again, Silent treatment? Okay, I deserve that. But could you please trust me to know what I'm doing? I'm going to help you, I swear it this time.
Last time I trusted you, I got a concussion, was dragged across the desert in a sack, almost burned alive, and thrown in a gas chamber. He responded bitterly.
Teresa didn't speak after that, but instead, she walked through the door, this time in a regular outfit and took a seat secluded from everyone else.
Minho, Newt, Gally, Brenda, Harriet, Sonya, Winston, Jorge and Frypan sent glares that could kill her way. Teresa ignored all of them, knowing she deserved all of it. Thomas just ignored her and Chuck and Alby were wondering what she had done to get this reaction from people. Same with the Pack.
Thomas, Minho, and Chuck push their way through and look at her.
"I think she's dead." Newt says.
"Nope." Teresa said.
"What's in her hand?" Gally asks, seeing a note.
"How did you even see that?!" Mason asked Gally, squinting at the screen, eating out of his refilled popcorn bucket that he got from lord knows where. Liam, sitting next to the boy, had tried to get some popcorn, naturally, but everytime his hand got even remotely close Mason would smack the werewolf boys' hand away. Even if he was paying attention to the screen.
It was freaking Liam out to say the least.
Newt crouches down, leans over, and gently takes the note from her hand. He unfolds it and takes a moment to read it to himself before reading it out loud, "She's the last one. Ever." He takes a pause, "What the hell does that mean?"
"Well, what the shuck do you think it means, slinthead? It means she's the last Greenie coming up!" Mason said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
The Gladers chuckled at the use of their slang in the boy's mouth.
Minho started laughing, "He sounds like Chuck his first week in the Glade!" the runner said to Alby. Everyone who had been there with Chuck his first week laughed too.
Suddenly, Teresa shoots up gasping for air. Everyone except Thomas flinches back.
Scott chuckled at this.
Teresa, still gasping for breath, manages to say, "Thomas!" In between breaths before she falls unconscious.
Everyone turns to look at Thomas. The latter, unknowing of pretty much everything, just looks around in bewilderment.
Everyone laughs at Thomas' expression and the fact that everyone was looking him like that.
After a beat, Gally locks eyes with Thoms and speaks up, "Still think I'm overreacting?" He asked.
"Severely. Yes." Pretty much everyone except for a select few said.
S C E N E C H AN G E
Newt, Minho and Thomas walk into a wooden shack. Alby can be heard in the background coughing and gasping. Thomas looks at the boy in question, who was restrained to the bed and writhing in pain; gasping, and panting hard.
"That's horrible.." Melissa said and put a hand to her mouth.
Although Newt and Minho pay no attention to the sick boy.
"Jeff... What's going on?" Newt asks the Med-Jack, "What's the matter with her? Why won't she wake up?" Her being Teresa.
"Who's bombarding who with questions now?" Thomas joked and laughed at Newt's slight blush.
Jeff responds with, "Look, man, I got my job the same way you did."
"What... does that even mean..?" Lydia asked, trying to think through that sentence.
All the Gladers shrugged.
"Jeff never really made sense anyways." Winston says.
Thomas looks at Teresa intently. So does Minho but.... Whatever I guess. Newt notices Thomas looking at Teresa and asks, "What, do you recognize her?"
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Teresa asked the boy.
"I don't need to answer you." He sneered back.
"No but- seriously dude. Why were you looking at her like that?" Thomas asked this time.
Minho, surprisingly, blushed at this causing everyone but Janson and Ava to laugh.
Thomas responded curtly with, "No."
"Dang, someone's distant." Jackson promptly got hit with a pillow in the face from the heavens.
Newt didn't seem to believe him because he quickly fired back with, "Really? 'Cause she seemed to recognize you."
"You really thought I had something to do with this?" Thomas pointed at the screen.
"Technically, you did." He responded, smirking evilly.
His grin deepened when Thomas started stuttering a string of curse words at the blonde boy.
Thomas, obviously feeling uncomfortable with the spotlight, quickly changed the subject, "What about the note?" He asked.
"Good job with that smooth subject shange, bro." Scott and Stiles fist-bumped without looking away from the screen. No one could tell if he was joking or not.
"Yeah, we'll worry about the note later." Newt responded in a faraway tone.
"Wrong choice, buddy." Mason muttered.
Newt shook his head and everyone else, minus Janson but Ava did smile fondly, started chuckling at the boy.
Him and Chuck would get along beautifully.
Minho was still looking at Teresa, lord knows why.
"It's love." Gally mocked.
"I think you should worry about it now." Thomas said to Newt.
"We've got enough to deal with at the moment." Newt responded, looking back at the soon-to-be runner.
"No one messes with Newt when he's annoyed. Especially when it's directed at you." Frypan shivered at a memory of Newt yelling at him.
"He's right, Newt," Jeff gave his input, "The Box isn't coming back up. How long do you think we can last?" Jeff asked in a shaky voice.
"Why is Jeff always so scared?" Thomas asked.
No one could answer.
"No one said that." Although Newt sounded like he was trying to convince himself more, at that point, "Let's not jump to any conclusions. We'll just... We'll just wait 'till she wakes up and we'll see what she knows. Somebody's got to have some answers around here."
"That's what I was saying!" Thomas said, exasperated. Lydia laughed at him and felt a pang of sadness course through her. She missed him so much.
Thomas looked towards Minho, thinking over some things and said, " 'Kay." Then, he turned around and headed for the door.
"Oh no. I know that face." Derek said half guardedly, half sarcastically.
"And where are you going?" Newt asked.
Thomas didn't waste a second answering, almost cutting Newt off, "Back into the maze." He responded curtly before walking out of the shack.
"Um- What?" Scott asked.
Minho and Newt shared an annoyed expression at the Greenie and Minho quickly rolled his eyes and started jogging after him, while Newt turned back to the girl.
Minho jogged outside and tried calling for Thomas to stop but he kept walking, "Hey. Hey, Thomas. Hey. Hey! What is this with you, huh? A death wish? You just got out, now you want back in?"
"Yes!" Brenda coughed to cover it up but everyone heard it and started laughing.
"Look who's asking the questions now!" Thomas poked Minho, after everyone (Minus Janson and Paige) calmed down.
"Look, Newt said that no one's ever seen a Griever and lived to tell about it, right? Minho- Now we have one! And you're telling me you're not even a little bit curious?"
Meanwhile, Minho was staring at him dumbfounded, "Not really, no."
"Minho looks so confused!" Mason laughed, " That is my new religion!" Still laughing, he took his phone out and took a picture of Minho's face.
Meanwhile, the guy in question was blushing furiously and biting his lip to keep from laughing.
Thomas started to walk again, but Minho quickly stopped him, "So, what's the plan? You gonna go out there and dissect that thing all by yourself?"
"He will if he has to." Allison with Thomas on screen. Some chuckled at this.
"I will if I have to." He told Minho, almost cutting him off like he did Newt. His tone left no room for argument, "Have the other runners left yet?"
"The other runners quit this morning." Minho informed, pointing at the other runners getting introduced to the keeper of the slicers, Gally. Minho sighed and continued, "After Alby got stung, they're not in a hurry to get back out there. Why are you?" He asked.
"That... Is a good question..." Thomas responded to Minho even if on-screen Minho couldn't hear the boy's reply.
"I-I think it's time we find out what we're really up against." Thomas said with an optimistic expression.
Minho nodded minutely, "Alright. But you're not going back out there alone. Meet in the woods in half an hour." At that he walked away.
Thomas looked towards the slicers and Gally looked back at that moment. They locked eyes, glaring at each other until Gally looked away.
Thomas walked off and some kid in the background said, "Yeah, next time, you can do it."
"I ship it!"
A/N- THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR THE SUPPORT! YOU GUYS ARE ALL WHAT GOT ME THROUGH WRITING THIS CHAPTER!! <33 I had to re-write this because I deleted- ACCIDENTALLY!- and I couldn't get it back so I rewrote it in google docs. Also I think I want to have Stydia endgame! Don't come at me!
Also, no Scott ot Pack bashing but Teresa and Janson and (minor) Ava Paige slander.
Y'ALL I'M RUNNING FOR HISTORIAN ON MY STUDENT COUNCIL FOR NEXT YEAR- IAUWEEBFLKjdvboiUGFLKJsbdcfiuGLDFJBsdgflaijbglaughgkljab;gfuh;JSNBLH;LKANS;GO
Have a good Day/Afternoon/Night wherever you are! Eat a snack, and stay hydrated <3
Vote, and comment for my self esteem lol