-before-

The cold floor trembled beneath her, jostling her from a dreamless sleep. Awareness, she found, was a pale blue light showing the hundreds of feet below. Swaying and shaking, metal screeching in her ear, she realized she was still climbing. Fast.
With a heavy head she rolled onto her back staring through the grates to see the ceiling she was racing for. Closer it came and the breath stilled in her chest at realizing she wasn't slowing. She was on her feet looking right and left, up and down, shoving aside barrels and backpacks, thin unfamiliar hands ran along every corner looking for a lever. There had to be one. There had to be something to slow it down. There wasn't. Nothing but supplies and herself, and she suddenly realized she didn't know who she was. And she wondered, as the box lurched and her shoulder hit the wall behind her, if you could be a stranger to yourself.

Does it matter, she asked herself. The answer was easy: not right now. So shut up and think. A whisper of rushing air and gears grinding drowned every thought, sparked panic in her chest so she couldn't breathe. Seeing the red-lighted ceiling rushing closer was too big a thought, and it gripped her heart and squeezed. Thinking wasn't working – stop thinking and listen. Releasing a short, shallow, breath she closed her eyes holding onto the wooden box beside her. Any second now she'd reach the top – was she gonna fly out of it, would she be crushed? Listen!

There was a click somewhere to her right and she felt the wind pulling at her hair and her clothes lessen just a little. With a thud the gears quieted, the chains pulling her rattled, the floor beneath her lurched and suddenly it was still. The color changed from red to green with a sudden blaring that made her flinch. Green, that was a good color. Maybe? She couldn't remember.
And then it was gone, replaced by a black thick enough she couldn't see and somehow that was worse. For a moment the dark space was filled with nothing but the sound of her own panting. And she thought, I could go mad in here.

A loud snap echoed around her and she curled in on herself, wondering if she'd now plummet, there was a hissing of metal as the ceiling above her retracted. Raising a hand to shield her stinging eyes she squinted at the sudden piercing glare, trying to see past it for a shadow or a shape of something more than just white. But she couldn't see, she could barely keep her eyes open.

There was murmuring somewhere above her, a faint rumbling of deep sounds she couldn't make out. The metal box she was in shook, two distinct clanks – footsteps. People. More strangers.

"How's the greenie looking, like he klunked his pants?"

"Is he big, can he help build?"

"What'd they bring up with him, any food?"

"Hope you enjoyed the one way trip, Greenie."

Her vision cleared with each blink and she watched a large figure step down and pull at the grate above her. With a creak it opened. He landed with heavy feet making the whole box sway, unable to see past the small hand what the new greenie looked like. He himself had a grim face and unyielding blue eyes. She drew her legs closer when he stepped forward, and he stopped recognizing she was now crouched low prepared to fight. And he looked, hard, at the hand still held shielding her face – there was a word for it, for those thin nimble fingers. Delicate. And then he noticed the hair hanging down her back, and it was very much a her.

"Shuck it," he muttered to himself stepping back. He looked at the guys above him, all waiting for him to throw the Greenie out and see what he did. "The Greenie's a girl." He looked back to her seeing with his back turned she'd risen to her feet, her hands now at her side, her face both sharp and soft, her body tense, and her eyes. Her eyes were hard, guarded. She was ready to fight.

-after-

"Come on, door'll be closing soon."

"I'll come in a minute," she answered without looking to the boy several feet from her back. Craning her neck she strained to see the top of the wall, at the deadest end in the maze. These walls towered high above the rest, they were a perimeter outlining the end of the maze. Beyond them was freedom, but they couldn't find it. They were missing something.

Impatient feet scuffed on stone, brown hands held on cocked hips. She was never ready. "Don't expect me to come back for you," he warned. If she got locked out, and he was sure eventually she'd push her luck, she'd be on her own.

She heard him turn and start running back, already feeling a tremor under her feet. But they'd missed something. A door, an overlooked crack in a wall, a hidden section. Something. If they were gonna find it, and on days like this she found herself doubting they ever would, it wasn't gonna be that very moment. So she sighed, her shoulders dropping along with her heavy heart, and turned for the Glade.

Clink. Scrape. A heavy breath. Clink. Clink.

The breath caught in her throat and she turned to the passage at her left growing dim as the sun started sinking below the walls behind it. There was a shadow in the distance, moving, creeping closer. It was a trick, her eyes were tired. Nothing more.

There was a terrible mechanical growl, her blood turned to ice and she shivered. Time to go. On her next breath she whirled and lunged for the path she and Minho had come, hearing a great commotion at her back. She didn't turn.

Right. Left. Straight. Right. Right. Left. Something large struck the wall, she heard chunks of it patter on the ground. Almost there, she told herself, next time I'll listen to him. Straight. Left. Round the corner. She could see the Glade now, the ground beneath her quivered more as walls began to move. Her pace slowed, no longer hearing anything behind her – it was so quiet she could almost pretend nothing was there at all.

She left the maze at a leisurely jog and slowed at the group of boys surrounding the entrance. Had they heard it too?

"You're cutting it too close," Alby told her as she came to a stop beside him and Newt.

Breathless she could only nod her agreement as she turned back to the Maze, looking now at the passageway she'd come back from. It'd been a trick, a cruel imagination. A shadow moved, drew deeper in the almost-mist until she couldn't see it. It had to have been trick.

"You alright?" came a smooth accented voice, mumbled close to her ear.

Stubbornness kept her from turning to him, and it had her leaning away so that he stepped back disappointed. A groan sounded from deep in the maze followed by a heavy rush of air – it'd taken her days of hearing it before she came up with the word moan. It was the sound of a ghost. The doors slowly began to draw together, the gears clinking as they wound in place. She released a breath she didn't know she'd been holding glad, for once, to be shut in.

"Welcome to the Glade."

At Alby's words she realized what day it was, giving reason to why she'd woken in such a foul mood. It also explained why so many gladers were at the doors, the Greenie was curious. Not wanting to be bothered with questions she didn't have answers to, most notably being why she was the only girl, she turned planning to meet Minho in the map room.

Unsynchronized footsteps whispered through the grass behind her, she neither slowed nor gave any other indication she knew they were there. Maybe he'd give up, see she didn't want to talk.
But he never gave up, at least not on her. A breath left her at the feel of his hand on her arm, holding her enough she knew he wanted her to stop but not tight enough she couldn't shrug him off if she wanted. "I need to go over the map with Minho," she told him without turning.

"I know," was his quiet reply. Slowly he ran his hand down the length of her arm, feeling her warm skin as he encircled her wrist. He stepped closer, her shoulder brushing his chest. It wasn't until he trailed his fingertips along the back of her hand that she finally turned to look at him. Her face was still hard but her eyes were soft – soft in a way she only was with him. "Something happened," he said not needing to ask. He knew her, so well that he could see remnants of fear hidden deep in her stare. He leaned closer bowing his head, the tip of his nose grazing her cheek.

She felt herself giving in, felt her body leaning into his. She took a steadying breath. "Before I forget." And she pulled away.

His hand rose as though to follow, still holding hers, and it dropped to his side. Empty. "Yeah," he sighed watching her go.

This is an idea I had for both movies, so far. This character is actually a combination of ideas I've had for this series. I've structured it with before and after because I wanted to try something new, I wanted to show who she was when she got there in direct contrast to who she has grown to be when Thomas arrives. Please let me know if it doesn't work and I won't do it again.
Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed.