The Maze Runner

“I do know her,” he whispered, leaning back in his chair. It felt good to finally admit it out loud.

Newt stood up. “What? Who is she?”

“No idea. But something clicked—I know her from somewhere.” Thomas rubbed his eyes, frustrated that he couldn’t solidify the link.

“Well, keep bloody thinking—don’t lose it. Concentrate.”

“I’m trying, so shut up.” Thomas closed his eyes, searched the darkness of his thoughts, seeking her face in that emptiness. Who was she? The irony of the question struck him—he didn’t even know who he was.

He leaned forward in his chair and took a deep breath, then looked at Newt, shaking his head in surrender. “I just don’t—”

Teresa.

Thomas jolted up from the chair, knocked it backward, spun in a circle, searching. He had heard …

“What’s wrong?” Newt asked. “Did ya remember somethin’?”

Thomas ignored him, looked around the room in confusion, knowing he’d heard a voice, then back at the girl.

“I …” He sat back down, leaned forward, staring at the girl’s face. “Newt, did you just say something before I stood up?”

“No.”

Of course not. “Oh. I just thought I heard something … I don’t know. Maybe it was in my head. Did … she say anything?”

“Her?” Newt asked, his eyes lit up. “No. Why? What did you hear?”

Thomas was scared to admit it. “I … I swear I heard a name. Teresa.”

“Teresa? No, I didn’t hear that. Must’ve sprung loose from your bloody memory blocks! That’s her name, Tommy. Teresa. Has to be.”

Thomas felt … odd—an uncomfortable feeling, like something supernatural had just occurred. “It was … I swear I heard it. But in my mind, man. I can’t explain it.”

Thomas.

This time he jumped from the chair and scrambled as far from the bed as possible, knocking over the lamp on the table; it landed with the crash of broken glass. A voice. A girl’s voice. Whispery, sweet, confident. He’d heard it. He knew he’d heard it.

“What’s bloody wrong with you?” Newt asked.

Thomas’s heart was racing. He felt the thumps in his skull. Acid boiled in his stomach. “She’s … she’s freakin’ talking to me. In my head. She just said my name!”

“What?”

“I swear!” The world spun around him, pressed in, crushing his mind. “I’m … hearing her voice in my head—or something … it’s not really a voice….”

“Tommy, sit your butt down. What are you bloody talking about?”

“Newt, I’m serious. It’s … not really a voice … but it is.”

Tom, we’re the last ones. It’ll end soon. It has to.

The words echoed in his mind, touched his eardrums—he could hear them. Yet they didn’t sound like they were coming from the room, from outside his body. They were literally, in every way, inside his mind.

Tom, don’t freak out on me.

He put his hands up to his ears, squeezed his eyes shut. It was too strange; he couldn’t bring his rational mind to accept what was happening.

My memory’s fading already, Tom. I won’t remember much when I wake up. We can pass the Trials. It has to end. They sent me as a trigger.

Thomas couldn’t take it anymore. Ignoring Newt’s questions, he stumbled to the door and yanked it open, stepped into the hall, ran. Down the stairs, out the front door, he ran. But it did nothing to shut her up.

Everything is going to change, she said.

He wanted to scream, run until he could run no more. He made it to the East Door and sprinted through it, out of the Glade. Kept going, through corridor after corridor, deep into the heart of the Maze, rules or no rules. But he still couldn’t escape the voice.

It was you and me, Tom. We did this to them. To us.

CHAPTER 29

Thomas didn’t stop until the voice had gone for good.

It shocked him when he realized he’d been running for almost an hour—the shadows of the walls ran long toward the east, and soon the sun would set for the night and the Doors would close. He had to get back. It only peripherally hit him then that without thinking he’d recognized the direction and the time. That his instincts were strong.

He had to get back.

But he didn’t know if he could face her again. The voice in his head. The strange things she’d said.

He had no choice. Denying the truth would solve nothing. And as bad—as weird—as the invasion of his mind had been, it beat another date with the Grievers any day.

As he ran toward the Glade, he learned a lot about himself. Without meaning to or realizing it, he’d pictured in his mind his exact route through the Maze as he escaped the voice. Not once did he falter on his return, turning left and right and running down long corridors in reverse of the way he had come. He knew what it meant.

Minho had been right. Soon, Thomas would be the best Runner.

The second thing he learned about himself, as if the night in the Maze hadn’t proved it already, was that his body was in perfect shape. Just a day earlier he’d been at the end of his strength and sore from top to bottom. He’d recovered quickly, and ran now with almost no effort, despite nearing the end of his second hour of running. It didn’t take a math genius to calculate that his speed and time combined meant he’d run roughly half a marathon by the time he returned to the Glade.

Never before had the sheer size of the Maze truly hit him. Miles and miles and miles. With its walls that moved, every night, he finally understood why the Maze was so hard to solve. He’d doubted it until now, wondered how the Runners could be so inept.