Should they? That was a good question
- one he didn’t know the direct answer to. The more people
they ended up telling the more dangerous their whole situation
would get. If people started losing hope, the Glade would start
falling apart at the seams. Everything they’d worked so hard
to keep together would crumble into dust and ash, - and that
would be the end for them.
If they thought they were doomed to live there all their lives
- like wild animals in trapped in a cage - too many people would stop working.
Stop caring.
Stop feeling a will to survive. To fight.
And that was the only thing that mattered in the whole damn
stupid world they’d been thrown into.
F I G H T I N G.
Escaping. Solving what now seemed unsolvable.
It was what they ran for. What they slept for, ate for, breathed for.
“I… Don’t know,” For one of the first times in a long time Minho
was at loss for words. He felt like someone had just ripped out
a large part of him, leaving an empty hole to be filled back up
with nothing but defeat and dread for the future the world held for them.
“Maybe select few people. Keep it on the low down.
Only tell those who need to know and we can trust to keep their
yappers shut,” The keeper huffed out, leaning his elbows on the
table in front of him and putting his face in his hands. “I thought
we were so close… I thought we almost had everythin’ mapped
out with our exit In sight. I thought we were finally gonna get out
of this shuckfaced Maze.”
Were they actually done for?
Newt doesn’t know either. He’s spent all of his life that he can
remember NOT KNOWING, and it feels like a cruel trick from
whoever put them here to have them think they’re so close to
finding something and then landing them back at square one.
W o r s e than square one.
This is ten times worse because they have to keep running,
knowing there isn’t anything new to find, any new progressions
to make. He inhales slowly and tries to get his rising panic under
control, nodding at Minho’s suggestion.
He manages a smile that’s fake, humourless, and doesn’t reach
his eyes. “The world never bloody liked us enough to actually give
us a shucking break.” Another couple deep breathes, and his smile
vanishes completely. His voice is quieter, when he speaks up again,
and sounds a lot closer to how he feels than his previous dry,
sarcastic, remark.
The maps on the table seem to draw his eyes back again, as
though he needs to check again that they’re right. He suddenly gets
the urge to knock them all off the table, let them blow away in the wind
or get stepped on. That’s how useful they are. He doesn’t; they still
have to act like nothing’s wrong.
“We’re going to have to keep running.” His voice stays the same, quiet,
sad, almost hopeless, and he stares at the maps instead of Minho. “All
day, every day. And then we have to come back and keep going over
the maps.”
Could he even do that? He doesn’t know.
Did it matter? They have to. They have to pretend nothing’s wrong. “And
we can’t slow down, we can’t change anything we’re doing. Everyone’s
too smart, they’ll figure out something’s up if we do.”
He finally looks up, feeling like a ten pound lead weight is on his
chest and he can’t get enough air. “I hate this place.” Not the first
time he’s said it, probably won’t be the last, but the time he’s meant
it the most. “I hate this place and its buggin’ maze and fake sky, and
I hate the shuckin’ newbies every month and the beetle blades and all
the shuckin’ kids we’ve had to bury—” He sucks in a deep breath,
cutting himself off.
They’re just kids. Him, Minho, all the kids out there they have to lie to—
