Aaaaand this chapter is the end. Thanks to everyone for reading and reviewing! If there's anyone who reviews after this, if you have an account I'll reply to you there, but if you're a guest, then well, be sure that your support is appreciated.

Self-advert here: I may start a new story with our favorite characters next year, which wouldn't be long, about ten (but you all know how my last chapter estimate turned out) chapters, featuring a zombie apocalypse universe. Preview was last chapter, by the way. I'm still not sure what I'm naming it, but keep an eye out!

Response to reviews:

Maze Runner Junkie: Here you go, the answer to Newt's survival : ) I hope you like the ending! And thanks for reviewing every chapter of this story until the very end-I find myself waiting for your reviews sometimes XD

There is no real ending. It's just the place where you stop the story.

Prototype

Epilogue

The lone teenage boy in the middle of the room sat cross-legged on the floor of the bare, empty room. His hands clutched a vile, black weapon. There was only blankness and apathy within his brown eyes as he raised the gun to his head and squeezed the trigger smoothly.

A loud bang resounded throughout the huge building, but no one came. The boy's head snapped in the opposite direction of the gun due to the force of the explosion, and the recoil sent the gun flying out of his hand, skittering into a corner as the boy's body folded in on itself, collapsing in slow motion as blood splattered onto the bare, white walls.

Red spread out in a beautiful pool around the motionless boy, whose life had already left him a long time ago.

The time between their failed attempt at a final Cure and the disbanding of WICKED had only been a fleeting shadow, time necessary to obtain the gun, time to send all of the Immunes far, far away, where they could start a new life.

All except one.

Aris looked forward to meeting Rachel and Teresa again.

Six months later, a doctor in the northen part of Norway had a sudden idea to sedate a couple of Flare patients who weren't yet past the Gone and keep them in an artificial coma for three months. The other doctors said she was crazy to think that it could work, since WICKED should already have tried it, but Dr Hong Pei Nan was adamant that they at least give it a shot. After all, the world was working its way to a gradual end, and the best they could do was to prolong it.

Four months later, Norway announced to the world (what was left of it) that they may have found a Cure.

Some chose to believe, some did not. After all, how could a under-equipped and under-staffed clinic in the cold mountains of Norway possibly hope to achieve what WICKED did not? The desperate ones that have not yet lost their sanity flocked to Norway, hoping to be given the same treatment, and a few of the younger doctors, bright eyed and curious, could barely wait until the third batch of patients were cleared and they announced their methods to the world.

A coma.

The world was thrown into a frenzy, a couple of the Crank Palaces being converted last minute into treatment facilities. The Right Arm had dissolved, only to have a new organization calling itself the MAZE, Management of Artificial Zone Experiments rise up to fill the power gap, organizing the Cranks and sending them in to receive treatment based on how close they were to the Gone, so that more could be saved. A woman was heading it as well, but she called herself Brenda, and was every bit the opposite of Ava Paige as they could hope for. The Norway doctors were still working on saving those past the Gone, but ever since the doctor that made the initial discovery disappeared off the radar after the first batch of patients made it through, they seemed to be making zero progress. Some wondered whether she was an angel sent from the heavens to save humanity, due to her sudden prominence and abrupt disappearance, and some started to worship her as a saint.

The Immunes and the cured Cranks were sent to cities to work and produce the needed resources to cure the rest of the Cranks, directed by Brenda's trusted right hand man, who was named Jorge. Different cities used different methods with those past the Gone, some shooting them on sight, some showing mercy and locking them up in a walled off wing of the Crank Palace, hoping that the angel would reemerge to provide providence for the fully Gone Cranks as well.

The world was recovering, rebuilding. People stopped to talk in the streets again. School reopened and new babies arrived into the world, but Immune as well, as they had inherited the immunogens in their parents' bodies. Communications were reopened, and some even started to sit down and collect different accounts of what had transpired during this hellish period. People started venturing out of the cities, to explore and colonize the barren land. Scientists started working on how the Scorch could be utilized and made habitable once again.

Three years after the initial discovery of the Hong Cure, as they named it, MAZE was dissolved peacefully and other governments rose up in its place. Humanity began to divide up into different countries again, reclaiming previously lost land.

One decade elapsed. Space explorations were attempted once more, and efforts to colonize another planet were intensified, the two decade rampage of the Flares fresh on their minds.

Two decades. Dr. Hong was discovered dead in a small shack by a stray adventurer in what was previously known as Sweden. Events recorded in her journal brought about a search for the Maze Children, as the world knew them as, who were taken by WICKED and put through arduous trials to search for a Cure. The young summer children viewed them as war heroes, but those of the older generation were determined to find them, having experienced the horror of that period and having known the terror of the Flare.

Later televised readings revealed that the Maze Children were halved, and then halved again, until there were no more than a sixth of the original left. The journal detailed the most about a child named Newt, whom she had apparently been assigned to, known to WICKED as Subject A5. He was a Control.

The journal went on to talk more about the attempted uprisings within WICKED, how they were quashed, her own inner turmoil when the child attempted suicide.

The world was in an uproar, and the government put the public readings on hold, attempting to pacify the furious mob which was dedicated to hunting previous WICKED associates down. That hold turned into a permanent one. Only a few of the higher ranked officials were allowed to view it.

For the journal went on to detail WICKED's more horrific doings. Experimenting on the Controls with prototypes, pushing him to the point of death. How her colleagues, Dr Jones, Dr Greene, Dr Callestan were tasked with administering the prototypes and observing the effects. That she heard that everyone died within the Right Arm's attack on WICKED, while she was providing a distraction for Newt.

She had poured all of her grief into that tiny booklet when she believed Newt dead. There were close to no entries while she wallowed in the tiny village until it was eradicated by Cranks. She had a superior vehicle, and managed to flee in time. From there, she made her way aimlessly north. She dropped by the intelligence sector of the WICKED facility, looked through their files, only to discover that they had dissected the brain of another Candidate, Teresa, only to come up with nothing.

She had found another room which was coated in drying blood. There, the last Candidate lay, gun in the corner of the room and a blank expression on his face.

She had wanted to end her life at one point too, driving further north, and then walking through the cold blizzards when her vehicle ran out of fuel. She would have died too, if not for the town of Jackson that found her and took her in, due to her white doctor's coat and the town's understaffed hospital.

There, a kind nurse mentioned in passing how the Right Arm had stopped by with a strange request.

To take care of a dying, non-Immune boy.

Hope flared. So he did not die with the others!

She wrangled a way to find out where the boy had gone, with his other two friends, one the last surviving Candidate, and the other a brash, strong boy, and Newt's best friend. She followed the best she could, and it took time, but eventually she found them in a forest in Norway.

Her encounter with them, however, only had the beginning recorded.

I was about done with this place-it looked undisturbed, unusually Crank free, yes, but there were no signs of any living human. I had searched many places, for three months, but I had turned up nothing. But he should still be alive, he had to be.

And he was.

I saw Thomas first, and he was less intimidating than when he was in charge of planning the Trials, but my nerves became so jittery that I couldn't move.

"Thomas-" I started.

There were no more entries after that, only pages and pages of white.

They debated whether they should send someone to search for this Thomas and Newt, and the third unnamed friend whom they assumed to be Minho, from previous entries.

The President of Norway denied a search on their territory so vehemently that it startled them, but Asia returned with a unanimous vote to deny such a search as well, even though it was within their interests to present this Minho as a hero. Africa allowed a search, but was confident that they would only be wasting their time. In the end, after a few half hearted, confidential searches, they called a close to the matter of WICKED. The abandoned facility mentioned was under the jurisdiction of the United States, and they had found the boy a long time ago-the Cranks feasting on him. As usual, it was sealed and never spoken of again.

The President of Norway let out a satisfied hum as soon as she was out of the camera bombardment. Pushing forty, she had rose to the occasion after the dissolving of MAZE, taking up a position in the World Leaders' Conference when they were reestablishing territory lines and the like. As the director of MAZE, which had been essential to rebuilding the world, every country was eager to have her as their leader, regardless of birth.

Brenda had surprised everyone by choosing Norway.

Jorge had picked a position in Asia's cabinet, quietly influencing the administration and making sure that those who didn't want to be found wouldn't be found.

She ignored the President of the United States who had been suspecting her of hiding something-he'd raised the issue privately with those in Europe and Asia, and Jorge had informed her of it-and that his suspicions would only be strengthened. She didn't care. She had nothing to tell.

Only of one snowy night spent in Norway, listening to Dr. Hong tell her tale of her encounter with the trio.

Thomas snapped around at the sound of his name, instantly wary and alert. He recognized the face from WICKED, but then she was never one of Janson's supporters. Still, she had come here looking for them, that much was obvious. He couldn't let her take them back. Not after they had finally gained the chance to live again.

"Dr. Hong." He said, loud enough so that Minho would hear and keep Newt and himself out of sight. If he was to be captured again, at least he wouldn't drag his friends along with him. Even though he knew that Minho would more likely be thinking along the terms of a surprise attack.

"Thomas." She repeated his name a little awkwardly. "I…uh. I heard that Newt was alive. And that you took him."

"We won't let you have him back." Thomas said automatically, casting a glance in the completely opposite direction of their hidey hole, hoping to misdirect any watchers. Then he realized that he had just ruined the cover story they had decided on. "I mean, he's dead. You can't take the body for more experiments. We, uh, buried him."

"Quit the klunk cover story, shank. You ruined it from the start already." A voice rang out from the tree above him, and Thomas resisted the urge to smack someone as he raised his head slowly to look at Newt, who was swinging his legs, one of them still bandaged, shuck it all on a tree branch. "I think we can trust her."

"How did you get up that tree?" Thomas asked. "Never mind, how did you get away from Minho?"

Newt grinned.

"I don't want to know." Thomas said immediately. He turned to the doctor, who looked overwhelmed by the sight of a not just healthy, but sane Newt. "And I guess you want to know how too."

They led Dr Hong back to their tiny, makeshift home-a three storey building which they only used the top floor, because of the frequent flooding, and packed with an abundant amount of food, water and wood. A disgruntled Minho met them at the door, shooting insults at Newt for whatever he had done involving an apple, a lot of ants and twigs, but allowed a tiring Newt to climb on his back for the journey up the two flights of stairs.

"He still gets tired easily, and sleeps a lot, but he's improving." Thomas explained, falling back into his old habits at WICKED, where he would report to the entire council of doctors and scientists about any subject. "Whatever Janson gave him worked, but I think I have an easier way to that. That…poison…potion Janson made him was supposed to inhibit cognitive activity, stopping the Flare from spreading, but it would be expelled from the body within days, unless it took on the form of a tumor, but that's another problem. Newt had probably developed the immunogens necessary to combat the Flare during the time bought by that, but if all we need was to stop brain activity…"

"A coma." Dr Hong said.

"Are you saying that I could have skipped all that and just do a coma for three months?" Newt's voice sounded grumpily from the other side of the room.

"Maybe." Thomas shrugged. "That theory is still untested."

"Then after the Flare was gone…what happened to the drug?" Dr Hong asked. "I mean, this time he looks a lot better compared to when I saw him last."

"I'm hoping that his body will develop a similar resistance to it in the process, and it could have already developed, since he's able to function normally, and the tiredness could just be due to his body repairing itself from everything, but we have no way to confirm that." Thomas sighed tiredly.

Dr Hong mulled over the information she had obtained in her mind, then spoke. "Do you mind if I take your information and test it out in a nearby hospital? That way I can use the resources to check Newt, and if it succeeds, we will have a cure for the Flare."

"Good that." Newt murmured, and Minho turned the idea around in his head briefly before agreeing as well, seeing no harm in it. Thomas nodded as well, having the approval of both his friends.

"Just one condition though. Please don't let the outside world know about us. We want to live in peace. If they find out, they'll come after us again."

Dr Hong didn't need to think twice.

"Alright."

Humanity colonized Mars five decades after the Flares. The first volunteers were three middle aged men with their family, down to the third generation of kids. Numbering forty seven in all.

When interviewed, one said.

"We had enough bad experiences here. Maybe we can start anew there."

Another said.

"I have a sense of adventure, unlike the other klunkheaded shanks who're still thinking about it."

The news station had a hard time deciding whether they should censor those, because they weren't swears, even though the man said it like one.

And the last one with graying blond hair and a freshly cured limp, thanks to the new technology, simply shrugged.

"I follow my friends."