Two updates in one day :D!

This is the very last chapter in this fanfic, but I'm also going to be writing a sequel to this one, so be sure to check that out when I upload chapter 1.

Thanks to everyone who read/favorited/followed/reviewed! You guys are awesome. :)

-Plerfstacks :)

Chapter 17

Anna tumbled through the Hole and into a room that was big enough to give the seventeen or so remaining Gladers some elbow room. She looked around the room, blinking in the bright fluorescent light. Thomas, Teresa, and Chuck were standing apart from the other Gladers, and all three of them looked shocked and relieved at what had just happened.

"What's going on?" Anna asked. She glanced around at her surroundings. The room that they were standing in seemed empty, save for a computer in the back. There was a door that opened up on the far side of the wall.

"Are you the last one?" Thomas asked her. Anna nodded. "Alright then," Thomas said, looking around. "We need to go through that door."

The Gladers filed through the tunnel that the door in the first room had led to. There wasn't a lot of room in there, but Anna and the others forged ahead, anxious to find what lay at the end. After a couple minutes, they came to the end of the tunnel; a gaping mouth of a hole greeted them.

"I guess the only way is to go down whatever that is," Anna said in a voice that she knew was far too jovial. The Gladers murmured assent, and in a very disorganized fashion they climbed into the hole and slid down the tube. The surface was slimy and greasy, and Anna had to fight not to gag at the smell coming off of it. The Gladers flew through the tube at breakneck speed, the oily stuff allowing them to go even faster. Anna didn't know which way was up and which way was down as she tumbled this way and that, and on a few occasions she found her hand in somebody's mouth, or her fist clenching a handful of somebody's hair. By the time they landed, Anna was very disoriented, and almost didn't notice that her ribcage was being crushed by Thomas, who'd landed on top of her. The Gladers unpicked themselves from each other, and after a moment they'd gotten themselves under control.

Anna, breathing heavily, took in her surroundings. This room had more stuff in it than the last one, and she didn't know what half of it was. There were white, shiny boxes in one corner, wiring and machinery absolutely everywhere, and to her left…

People. There were shucking people behind a glass wall, watching them. They were all wearing identical outfits that had something monogrammed on the front shirt pocket that Anna couldn't make out. She backed away from the strange people, and the other Gladers did the same.

"Those are the shuck Creators," Minho whispered to her right. "They're freaking watching us." He seemed paralyzed with the realization of it all, until he freaked out and tried to break the glass. Anna and Newt restrained him as well as they could until a murmur spread through the crowd and Minho stopped trying to kill the Creators. Anna turned to see a woman walking toward them, wearing different clothes than the rest of them. She was accompanied by a boy whose face was hidden from view.

"Hello," the woman said simply. "You've done a wonderful job. It's been a while, hasn't it?"

"Who the shuck are you?" Anna asked.

"That doesn't matter," she replied. "What does matter is that you've returned to WICKED. You've been missed." The way that she said you've been missed made Anna think the exact opposite. Anna dismissed this thought, however, and instead focused on the "returned to WICKED" part. She was about to ask the woman for some serious clarification when she spontaneously reached out and tugged the hood off of her friend's face. Anna stifled a gasp as she beheld the boy standing before them.

"Gally!" Anna cried. "You shucking idiot! What the shuck is going on?"

"Don't worry," the ever-calm woman replied. "Everything will become clear soon. There is only one final test."

"What do you mean one final test?" Anna asked, anger mounting in her voice. The WICKED woman didn't answer, however, because Gally did it for her.

"Anna…" he mumbled, his eyes wide. "They've got control over me. You have to help—"

Then, suddenly, something strange came over him, and he grabbed a dagger out of absolutely nowhere. Gally, without warning, hurled the knife at Thomas with more force than Anna thought humanly possible. There was nothing Anna could do as the knife flew through the air, aimed at Thomas's heart. Suddenly, Chuck appeared out of nowhere and flung himself in front of Thomas, intercepting the knife with his body. The boy landed on the floor in a heap as Thomas fell to his knees beside him. Tears streaming down his face, Thomas cradled Chuck in his arms as the boy's blood began to pool around them. Thomas whispered something to Chuck as he stared down at him, most of which Anna didn't catch as she stood stock-still, overcome with the shock of what had just happened. Chuck gave a mumbled reply, and his eyelids began to shut, even as he tried to keep them open.

"No, Chuck," Thomas was sobbing. "No, please, Chuck. You're not going to die."

"Thomas," Chuck said in a quiet rasp of a voice. "Thomas, it's going to be okay." Blood dripped down his chin and onto Thomas's hands and arms.

"Stay with me, Chuck," Thomas said, almost angrily. "You're not gonna die."

Chuck started to say something, but his eyes dulled and his lids remained half-shut. Shaking, Thomas stood up, completely drenched in Chuck's blood, and hurled himself at Gally. He tackled Gally to the ground and began tearing into him, punching every inch of his face and yanking out tufts of his hair. Anna snapped out of her stupor suddenly and ran forwards, Newt following her. They grabbed Thomas and dragged him, convulsing, over to the other side of the room. Thomas, still trembling violently, pressed his back into the wall and his head into his hands. His shoulders shook with sobs as Anna, Newt, and the rest of the Gladers remained somewhat shell-shocked by the scene that had just unfolded. Teresa walked over to Thomas and tried to comfort him, and Thomas looked up at her, wild-eyed, with something like insanity flickering on his face. He didn't say anything, though, and they were interrupted right then by a loud siren and lots of yelling from outside. Suddenly, a door that Anna hadn't even known was there opened up, letting bright sunlight stream into the room. Anna squinted against the light as people rushed in and began shoving them towards the door. One of them grabbed the woman who'd shown up with Gally and shot her, point-blank. Anna reeled in even more shock as she watched the woman crumple to the floor, her blood adding to the horrific mess in the room. She noticed numbly that she was being pushed out the door with the rest of the Gladers and loaded into a bus. Once she was sitting beside Newt on the bus, she realized finally that they were either being rescued, or kidnapped. Either way, they were escaping the awful room that they'd been in before, and, Anna realized suddenly, they were escaping the Maze.

The bus ride was longer than Anna would have liked, given the fact that she was still traumatized and would like nothing better than to go take a nap for at least a few months. The people who'd rescued them told them the whole story of what was going on, and though Anna listened, she didn't remember most of it. The only thing she was aware of was a constant murmur of speech and the view from out the window. There wasn't a lot to see; most of the terrain was desert, with a few decrepit cities sprinkled about. Suddenly, the bus slowed and stopped in front of a large building that didn't have a sign in front or anything. Anna and the other Gladers were ushered off of the bus and through the large doors. They walked down a long hallway and into a large room that had virtually no furniture. They were met by a group of adults wearing similar outfits and from there, they were led in separate directions. Anna found herself being taken by the arm and pulled into a room with a large chair and a variety of other equipment that she didn't recognize.

"What's going on?" she asked, cringing at how bad off she sounded. The woman who'd led her there smiled.

"You've been rescued, honey," she replied. "We were finally able to get you out."

Anna recoiled slightly at being called "honey", but she didn't comment.

"You've been trying to help us?" she asked. The woman nodded.

"That's right. Now I just need you to stay quiet, alright?"

Anna nodded, even though she had about a million and one questions. The woman bustled around the room for a moment, fiddling with stuff that Anna didn't know a thing about. Anna zoned out for a moment, and the next thing she knew, she was hooked up to an IV machine and there was a funny cold sensation in her right arm. She had a moment of total panic mode, until she realized that they wouldn't be trying to kill her if they'd gone to all the trouble of getting them out of WICKED. Anna relaxed, and before she knew it, she was floating into unconsciousness.

When Anna awoke later, she had no indication of what time it was, but the same woman who'd talked to her earlier was still standing in front of her, so it couldn't have been too long. Anna sat up, realizing as she did so that she was still hooked up to the IV machine. The woman standing in front of her rushed forward and pushed Anna back down with her head pressed against the fully reclined chair.

"What the shuck?" Anna asked. "Let me out."

"I will, sweetie, as soon as I get you unhooked from the machine." Anna frowned, still sort of annoyed at the endearments being fired at her. Nobody was allowed to talk to her like that except for Newt. She decided to let this matter go, however, and waited somewhat impatiently for her captor to let her go. After a minute or so, she was told that she could go meet the others, and the woman escorted her down the hallway and into a large room with two other doors branching off of it. Inside the room was at least half of the seventeen remaining Gladers, including Thomas, Teresa, and Minho. Anna walked over to where they were standing.

"Hey," she said. "What's up?"

"Nothing much," Teresa replied. "We've been waiting for everyone to show up."

"Do you guys know what the shuck they were doing to us back there?" Anna asked, still confused about the whole thing.

"I think it was just because we came from a shucking battle to the death with Grievers," Minho replied. "They wanted to patch us up."

Anna glanced down at her previously injured wrist, which had miraculously been completely healed.

"Shuck," she said appreciatively, flexing her wrist. "They did a good job."

Minho nodded, and they lapsed into silence. After a moment, somebody came up behind Anna and put a hand on her shoulder. She spun around to see Newt grinning at her.

"Hey, guys," he said. "Nice place they've got here, isn't it?" Anna laughed and nodded.

"It's a whole lot better than the Maze, that's for sure."

Thomas gave a small nod at this, which was the only indication he'd given so far of being alive. Anna's jovial mood faded slightly as she looked at the masked sadness on his face. She didn't know exactly what to say, so an awkward silence hung over the group until a bunch of people wearing the same uniform as the people who'd rescued them walked in. They set a bunch of plates and forks and stuff down on the table, and Anna wondered what they were planning on doing. She didn't have long to wonder, though, because after a moment they were handing out pizza to all the Gladers. Anna was surprised to realize that she hadn't had pizza in as long as she could remember, as it was the one thing that Frypan never made. Dave might have made pizza at some point, but Anna never could tell what she was eating with him.

Anna pushed thoughts of Dave out of her head as she remembered that he'd been taken by the Grievers. She instead focused on the food, and it only took the Gladers about ten minutes to eat almost all of it, after which nobody really wanted any more.

The group was separated into their different rooms in which they'd spend the night: Anna and Teresa in one room, all the boys in the other. Anna felt sort of annoyed that she suddenly wasn't allowed to be in the same room as the boys that she'd spent two years in close quarters with, but she decided that it was a small price to pay. Besides, she and Teresa got a whole room to themselves.

"Night, love," Newt murmured as they went their separate ways. Anna pulled him close and kissed him. They were finally safe. Finally she could be with Newt forever without worrying about Grievers or figuring out the Maze. As Anna walked with Teresa to their room, she was truly happy and carefree for the first time in two years. And although Anna didn't know at the time, it would also be one of the last.