Rain. Tip tap, tip tap goes the rain. Another day in the glade. Another morning. The first without Ben. Our friend.

My first day I was no longer in the glade. Physically yes, the trees and plants and animals were all the same. Ben was missing though. Leaving a gnawing, gaping hole. He wasn't standing there in the morning. Alive. With a wild grin on his face. Boasts slipping out of his mouth like I had been when returning from my banishment.

But he wasn't there when the doors pried themselves open. Nothing but a plethora of dust and crackly old leaves rustling around to greet me.

Mentally, the glade was no more.

Today was my first day in exile. The maze walls looking more like a claustrophobic cage than protective barriers. We were imprisoned. Just little lab rats to pick off whenever entertainment value was low. Like the fucking hunger games or some twisted weirdo shit. Let's just say I couldn't wait to get out of here to meet Oprah.

I walked away from the maze's entrance after checking once again for him. Realizing I was already sick of the dull blades of grass, muck covered pond,
and washed out colors the stupid glade provided.

What was the point?! Keeping your head down. Doing the same thing everyday. Getting stuck in the same soul splitting, achingly dreadful routine. Just hoping you're not the next kid dead thanks to the Creator's kill happy whims. Worst part is that you can't do a thing about it.

What was the point?

"Hey." Two hands tore me out of my melancholic haze, each one stabbing either side of my ribs. Causing me to flinch from the sudden contact. The boy who had interrupted me seemed to be almost taken a back from my skittishness. "What's wrong?" Gally asked.

"Everything." I grumbled. "I just feel like tearing my hair out I'm so bored." He grabbed my hand, limp in his, and led me away from the rain.

"You're bored? You're never bored? Wouldn't you usually be making jokes and playing tricks?" We found shelter under one of the hut like structures. Him pulling me close for warmth. Which was pointless due to how my skin seemed prone to being the same temperature as frozen fractals.

"Not exactly in the mood to joke Gally." He looked down at me, trying to take in what I was saying with my words and with my body. Slouching, I stared right back.

"You can call me Gal you know?" Ruffling my hair, he bent down to kiss the side of my forehead. "Whatever happened to when you called me Gal?" Silence. I wasn't in the mood. Gally tried another conversation topic. "You could always make a funeral or some klunk. You threw a pretty good fake one."

"I don't want to make a funeral without his body." I snapped, aggression charging my tone. I wasn't meaning to say if that way but everything I did say came out with an biting filter. "Or whatever's left of it."

The end of the day was nearing. Alby had joined Minho this morning to investigate the griever that stung Ben. The only problem is that we had just fifteen minutes left till the doors slammed themselves back shut. The rain was dripping slowly now. Less and less till all that remained were foggy clouds looming over the sky.

I was the first to wait in front of the doors, Gally trailing behind me. Thomas, Newt, and some of the other gladers joined us. All of us shoving the possibility of them not making it back to the back of our brains.

"Minho's been late before." Newt reasoned, scratching occasionally at his neck. The blonde boy kept quick glances down at his watch.

"Never this late." I murmured, thoughtlessness riddling my brain. "What if I went in? To check on them? Something could've gone wrong. They could need help-"

"No way." Gally's hand held a firm grip on my shoulder. "I'm not letting you leave."

"Besides, who else would we check out if you weren't here sweetheart?" A kid named Kevin chuckled. Gally and I simultaneously spun toward him.

"I will throw you headfirst into the maze right now, fucking Shank." I sneered, rather belligerently if I were to admit to it fully. What? He deserved it.

"Alright simmer down y/n." Frypan stepped into mediate. "Everything's gonna be alright, okay. No need for you to skip on in there."

"It makes sense though-"

"No." Gally interrupted sharply. "You're not going in the damn maze. They'll be here."

"Whatever." I grumbled, easing myself away from his hold. Newt checked his wrist for the umpteenth time. Then we heard it.

The plummeting feeling of your stomach falling a thousand stories when the doors made that boom. That gut wrenching boom. The one that signaled that started the closing process. Everyone's breath hitched. Our heartbeats quickening it's mellow pace.

"Come on guys can't we send someone after them?" Thomas piped up. Urgency failing to disguise itself in his voice.

"That's against the rules." Gally's stubborness shone right through. God, I don't understand why he's been acting this way. "It's either they make it back or they don't." I knew things were bleak when Newt started rubbing his face. It was a nervous habit of his.

"Can't risk losing anyone else." Newt responded. The walls emitted a low growl. Panic flurried itself on me, biting at my flesh. Dust swirled up angrily, searching for any open raw crevice. The growl had turned into a roar. Then the walls started moving.

Oh fuck. Oh shit. Fuck. This was really happening? Again?! Not just one but two friends gone?! No. It can't-

Please no.

"Oh no." Chuck peered upward at the magnetic walls, vocalizing what we were all thinking.

"We're fucking fucked." I blurted, gazing at the structure in front of us in a trancelike awe.

"There!" Thomas pointed, snapping me out of it. A strangled cry I recognized as Minho's, echoed around a corner rooted in the taunting maze.

Stay in here and obey like a little lap dog while abandoning your friends. Wow, real heroic. I was done with these stupid rules. This stupid so called 'order'. Never helped me before, so why should I start now?

"Wait no something's wrong." Newt noted as we saw the Minho's figure round the corner. Minho's figure that was carrying Alby on his back! Barely making any traction as Minho limped, supporting his friend.

"Come on Minho, you can do it!" Chuck cried out. The other boy's joined in with him, creating frenzied words of encouragement. The walls were only getting closer and closer together. They didn't care how special Minho was to us. The stupid fucks that were the creators seemed to tune out any empathy. Replacing it with the evermore evolving apathy.

"Come on, you can make it!" Chuck shouted.

"Minho you gotta leave him!" Gally yelled, words empty of encouragement.

"They're not gonna make it." Newt realized. Yeah, no shit. Doors showed no mercy as they rapidly closed the distance. Minho was now resorting to dragging Alby. An agonizing cry pulled itself out of him. It was going to be over unless I did something.

Me.

Thomas tore from the crowd, through the doors gap.

"Thomas!" On impulse and impulse alone I leapt after him. My arm outstretched towards the back of his shirt. I wasn't going to lose the greenie. I had to protect my greenie. I had to. I was ready to bunch my fist around his shirt when something swayed my plans off kilter.

Gally snaked an arm around my neck. His other wrapping itself around my ribs. With one pull he tugged me back into the glade. That stupid prison of a glade.

My gaze was yanked from Thomas just as he made it to the other side. He was on the other side. Without me.

"The hell were you thinking?!" Gally dropped me, I fell into a small heap on the floor. "Why would you do that?!" He shouted, brows furrowed with pure unbridled anger. "You got a death wish or something-"

"Gally why do you always have to ruin everything?!" I matched him exactly. Our stubbornness was so foolish back then. So trivial. If only we could've seen it. "Ugh!" With one great shove I pushed him aside, storming off to my treehouse.

"The hell is wrong with you y/n?!"

"Go fuck yourself!"