Disclaimer: I don't own any characters from the Maze Runner series nor any recognizable storylines from the novels/movies. I only own my character(s) and basic plot of this story. This is rated T for language and mature scenes.

present day—the glade

"Gally, I am baking like cookie dough up here," a girl just a few years short of eighteen said.

Her age was debatable. She didn't have any other girls to compare herself to, but on average the estimate was that she was somewhere around sixteen. The only thing she was definitely aware of was that her name was Amy.

"Save some for me," the aforementioned boy, Gally, called up to her in retort. He was hardheaded and stubborn but also quite loveable if one possessed the will power and patience to dig deep enough below the surface.

Amy scowled.

"I hope you get salmonella," she shouted back, wincing at the sun's powerful rays, relentless and ever-burning against her neck and shoulder blades.

"What?" Gally asked, sounding both confused at the word he clearly didn't know the meaning of but also annoyed at the fact that she wished some mysterious disease upon him.

"I don't know," she replied, adjusting the hammer in her dominant hand. Sweat was beginning to soak through her tank top, making her feel itchy and uncomfortable. "Isn't that what you get when you eat raw cookie dough or something?"

She didn't know how she knew that. She certainly hoped it wasn't from some horrible past experience.

"How the shuck should I know?" Gally squinted up at her, as if the conversation was beneath him and he was aggravated at her for not realizing it.

"I also hope we still have some sunscreen and aloe sitting around somewhere," she continued angrily, if not a bit accusingly. "Or else I'm going to get cancer from the sun's radiation and die and you're going to feel at least mildly guilty about it."

"Yeah, yeah," Gally waved her off. "I'll go look for some, princess. Just finish up the roof."

He spoke as if she were being dramatic and overreacting, as if a 'little sunburn couldn't hurt' whereas he was the one who'd slathered half the bottle all over his arms, shoulders and forehead a couple days ago and wasted one of the last bottles in their supply because he couldn't handle the heat. Since Amy was one, she was allowed to say that he handled the weather like a girl. Out of the two of them, she most certainly was not the princess.

Gritting her teeth and twitching her shoulders every now and then at the prickles of heat rash she felt on her hot skin, Amy finished closing up the tear in the roof. She didn't know where the tear came from. It's not like the Gladers spent their free time on top of the Homestead and she hadn't seen any Grievers around lately to puncture a hole in it.

She considered the possibility that maybe it was just getting old. It was coming up on three years now since the Homestead stood and while most buildings could stand for about a hundred times longer than that without fault, the Homestead was much more fragile in comparison to any modern day skyscrapers. The time would come eventually when it'd have to be reassembled – better – and the girl loathed to think of the possibility as she'd been there the first time it was built.

"Looking for something?" a voice called where Gally once stood, pulling her out of her reverie.

It was coated with an English infliction and Amy turned in the direction it came from, shielding her eyes. A blonde-haired boy stood, one hand on his hip with the other raised, grasping a familiar bottle between his long, thin fingers.

"Oh thank God," she breathed, edging herself backwards slowly and being mindful of the material beneath her knees. "Okay, I'm coming down!"

"But I quite like the view," she heard the smirk in the boy's voice and she rolled her eyes good-naturedly.

"Bite me."

"Maybe later."

Amy gave him a look that clearly said 'did you have to' before she swung her leg over the edge of the roof and began her descent down the wooden ladder.

She was proud of all they had accomplished; proud of the fact that they were able to create their own tools, make and grow their own food, and essentially survive on their own.

Of course, there were supplies the Box sent up once a week. Things they couldn't possibly build but were still a necessity to live. Med kits, iron weapons, flint and steel, the like. In all actuality they probably could have created their own medical equipment but none of them knew how to make medicine. Surely there was a book somewhere on the history of medication and what medicinal plants the Ancient Egyptians used or maybe the Greeks or whoever. But frankly none of them were too quick to request it from the Box. Why go through the trouble of trying to make everything by hand when it could already be done for them? Not to mention correctly.

She couldn't imagine entrusting Frypan to whip up a concoction for a headache. It would probably initiate more symptoms than the original ailment.

The land had come equipped with forestry and livestock but the rest was up to them. Upon first arriving at the Glade, she had asked wearily why they needed weapons. She was under the impression that she'd been sent up there to fight one of the boys to the death maybe, or be chased by crazy people through the woods with nothing but a small dagger and her wits. But once she was introduced to the animal pen, she put two and two together and understood that they had to make their own food.

She was relieved that she didn't suffer from any immediate danger in the near future but she felt just as bad for the animals. After a while though she'd become desensitized to it, like everyone eventually did. They needed to eat and none were so stubborn that they'd try to live on only crops, fruits and nuts. She had tried of course (she had the sense that she wasn't a vegetarian in her past life, but it was different when she saw the animals she'd be putting in her mouth on a daily basis) but hadn't lasted more than a few days.

But yes, she was proud of them. They weren't ideal circumstances but they made due with the fortune they had – what little fortune they had – and who could fault them for that? But maybe it was because she was a Builder. By default she felt immensely proud of anything that had to be created by hand.

"Did you get this from Gally?" she asked, snatching the bottle out of the blonde boy's hand.

"No," he furrowed his brows as they made their way to the water spigot. "I figured you'd need it and I had some free time."

"Be still my heart," she placed a hand over her chest. "You do care."

Rolling her eyes inwardly, she assumed Gally had no intentions of bringing her the lotion. What a slint. She rubbed the sunscreen across her burnt skin, wincing at the sensitivity. The sun had got her good.

"I try not to but you just keep weaseling your way back in."

"I have that effect on people."

The two exchanged easy grins as they approached the spigot. She drained a few large gulps before sticking her head underneath the faucet to cool her down. The cold water made her gasp at the sudden contrast of temperature on her scorching skin.

"Is it lunch time yet?" she asked rhetorically, wiping her eyes and wringing her hair out. It sounded like a monster was living inside her stomach as it gurgled and growled.

The blonde, who went by the name of Newt, raised his eyebrows at the sound.

"Is the spawn of Satan in your stomach?" he retorted, ignoring her question.

They made their way towards the sitting area near the kitchens, perching on a table underneath the awning. Her skin was ever grateful as it was finally able to breathe.

"I don't know, maybe," she said casually, too relieved by the shade to come up with a witty response.

The alluring scent of food floated through the air tempting their noses and her stomach growled angrily again.

Newt threw his long legs over the bench, leaning back against the table with his elbows resting behind him. He tossed his head back, exposing his slender, pale neck that glistened with beads of sweat.

"Bloody hell it's hot," he moaned as another wave of heat rolled in.

Amy was always entertained when she talked to him. He was so delightfully British and he said 'bloody' a lot which she could appreciate. His voice was smooth and he punctuated his words with an air of maturity that most of the kids around them didn't possess. It was a surprising contrast to his age, though being second-in-command placed a lot of responsibility on his shoulders. More often than not Newt was the voice of reason when things got out of hand and he cared a lot about the Glade and everyone in it even if he sometimes didn't like to show it. It made him seem wise beyond his years and sometimes it was easy to forget that he was only sixteen. Well, maybe sixteen.

Many of the Gladers were starting to congregate around the kitchen, leaving their posts for the time being to get some grub. Newt and Amy remained at the table, waiting for the crowd to disperse.

It wasn't uncommon to see the two of them together. Amy had somehow grown close to Newt (though she'd arguably grown close to everyone), probably because he was the one to drag her out of the Box when she first arrived in the Glade however many years ago it was. He explained everything to her, helped her make sense of a world that essentially made no sense at all. He was patient with her when the overload of information became too much, but he also pushed her to see reason when she fell into a panicked denial.

Tough love was important in the Glade and even though Newt hadn't perfected it quite like Alby had, he was still able to slap some sense into Amy when she needed him to. Even still, nearly three years later she had questions. Sometimes neither Newt nor Alby could answer them but at least Newt admitted he didn't know. It made her feel better knowing she wasn't the only clueless one.

It'd become a habit of hers during her first couple of days in the Glade to find Newt whenever she needed help. There was this link of trust that formed between the two of them that she couldn't sever and at first it embarrassed her how often she went looking for him. And sometimes she didn't even need answers. She just wanted to be near someone, to feel them sitting beside her and to assure her that at least she wasn't alone.

There were nights when he would just rest beside her hammock, knees pulled into his chest, and the steady breaths he took would lull her into some form of security. No one ever questioned it. Most Greenies never found sleep their first few nights and though most would never admit it, they'd asked someone at least once to guard their sleep. Just for peace of mind. They weren't faulted for it because everyone understood.

It had become routine for him to follow her to her hammock and curl up on the ground at the head of it, as close as he could be. Sometimes they'd talk, sometimes they wouldn't say anything at all. Occasionally she'd fall asleep immediately from a rough day of Keeper's training, others she would chase sleep all night to no avail. Chances were if she didn't get sleep, he wouldn't either. Amy felt horrible for depriving the boy of rest, but she couldn't bring herself to send him away. He didn't chastise her for her tears, didn't condemn her for being scared. No one did. Because they'd all been there before.

Amy had no idea she could be so thankful for another person. She didn't know whether to be frightened or relieved that she had someone to depend on. She was afraid of appearing weak in front of the boys, as if she had something to prove for being a girl, but he accepted the fact that sometimes she just needed someone to hold her hand and walk her through the rough patches. Newt was her best friend, in every essence of the term. He was her person. Somehow, over time, he'd molded himself into her other half.

But it wasn't only one-sided.

She was there when he needed a shoulder to lean on. Everyone broke down at some point and there were those rare days when Newt never wanted to leave his cot because his mind was consumed with night terrors or his leg was giving him fits and he couldn't stand. He'd never admit to needing help, but he also never had to. She knew.

So Amy and Newt were sort of a package deal. Where one was, the other wasn't far behind.

Everyone had their person. Newt was hers, and she was his.

Another very important thing in the Glade was to have a companion you could rely on when the days grew cold, someone that could tether you back to Earth and give you a beacon of light in all the darkness.

day one—three years ago

A shocked gasp echoed in the shuddering elevator.

One minute she was nothing and the next she was struggling to breathe as she awoke on something hard and cold. Her eyes struggled to make sense of her surroundings but her brain was muggy and disoriented as it tried to regain full consciousness.

The area was dark and it took her a few minutes for her sight to adjust. Her body felt sluggish as she tried to prop herself up on her knees. Whatever was below her felt metallic and rough. There was a bulb on the far corner of the room and it emitted a soft, eerie red glow that set her fear into overdrive. Where was she? How did she get here?

Who was she?

She felt panicked as she tried to dredge up some logical explanation. Had she been kidnapped? She couldn't remember anything that led up to where she was now. Was she drugged?

She coughed and pushed herself away from the floor and into the far wall, feeling a rattle as her back made contact. Was she in a cage? The air felt thick and humid and the vague scent of oil made her stomach churn. She tried abandoning her sight in favor of using her other senses and felt along the walls. Also metallic but not completely solid. There were small holes in the walls like a crate. The first thing that came to her mind was the cage fishermen tossed overboard to catch crabs.

It troubled her to think that she was the crab.

There was a loud bang as the cage whirred to life and abruptly began to lift, gears winding and cranking to life from all sides. She yelped, pushing herself into a corner. Her eyes were able to catch vague movement through the holes of the cage and she understood that she was in some sort of elevator shaft. She glanced upward to no avail, unable to see anything above her. Where did the shaft lead to? Was there going to be someone waiting for her at the top?

She waited, breathing heavily as she tried to steady her heart. Her eyes burned as tears threatened to escape but she swallowed them down, afraid that if she started crying she wouldn't be able to stop. She needed to remain calm and distract herself. Keep active.

She continued moving her hands around, tracing the edges of the cage and following the creases until something solid blocked her path. She examined what seemed to be two wooden crates stacked one on top of the other. She could just make out their silhouettes and found they weren't very big. There seemed to be some text printed on their sides but the red light wasn't strong enough to fully reach her side of the cage for her to make out anything legible.

Blinking, she trained her gaze across from her and noticed a few shadows resting beneath the red glow and assumed they were more boxes she wouldn't know the purpose of. Exhaling slowly, she lifted her head and tried looking for signs of anything above her but again was met with nothing but blackness.

How long had she been moving?

Two minutes? Twenty?

She didn't know. Time seemed to have no meaning inside the cage and she was helpless. She brought her hands to her face, rubbing her eyes and wiping away the wetness. Her fingers grazed something soft and she paused, realizing it was hair. She carefully ran her fingers through it, lip quivering as she realized she had no idea what it looked like or what color it was. It seemed to reach just below her shoulder blades and was slightly wavy, also thick and coarse.

She then tried to map out her own face, fingers tracing the rounded cheekbones and the curve of her nose. It was small but pronounced, pointing outward from the level bridge of her nose. Her lips were average-sized she assumed, with her lower lip slightly larger than her upper one but her cupid's bow was prominent and sharp. Her fingers dipped slightly at her chin and she discovered she had a slight dimple there.

Changing course, she moved upward. Her eyes were a nice distance apart, maybe about an inch and a half of space between them. She had no idea if her eyelashes were considered long or not but they tickled her fingers. Her forehead was bare, indicating that she didn't have a fringe and it felt like her hair was parted down the middle at an uneven angle.

Her mind wasn't able to conjure up a decent image of what she may have looked like. She didn't know if her skin was light or dark, didn't know the color of her eyes or if she had any freckles. She was both nameless and faceless.

Did she even have an identity to begin with? Was she alone in the world? Did she belong to someone? Parents, a partner? How old was she? Did she go to school, did she work? What was her favorite food? Did she have any ambitions?

She wanted to pull her hair out and her fingers tugged at her scalp, shaking her head back and forth at the onslaught of questions her mind was bombarded with. Who could do this? Who made her this way?

Suddenly the cage shuddered and her breathing hitched, noticing light flooding into the cage from above. She squinted up at it, realizing she had reached a set of double doors and for a moment she wondered hauntingly if the cage wouldn't stop and she'd burst through them. But the cage shakily slowed to a halt, squeaking as the brakes were activated, and then all was silent.

All she could hear was the sound of her ragged breathing and the blood pumping in her ears as her heart thumped hard against her ribcage. She waited for something, anything, to happen but it remained disturbingly quiet. She had a frightening thought that maybe she was just going to be left there until she starved to death.

Then in the blink of an eye the doors burst open and in poured light that nearly rendered her blind.

She winced and shielded her eyes, feeling the painful strain as she waited for her eyes to readjust. There were black dots clouding her vision near the surface where the light was coming in and it took a moment for her to focus in on the shapes and realize they were human.

The fishermen.

She swallowed thickly and she heard a fresh cacophony of murmurs as they stared down at her without really seeing. One of the boys, tall and lanky with tousled blonde hair knelt down and unlatched the top of the cage, exposing her fully to the strangers that eyed her like a hawk.

"Is that a girl?"

"Nah man, can't be. Just a really feminine guy."

"That's some long hair you got there, shank."

"Hey Greenie, did you forget your makeup bag?"

There were snickers and she furrowed her eyebrows, the clearly male voices ringing dumbly in her ears.

Despite her nervousness she idly wondered why they were so surprised to see a girl. She knew she was a girl, there was no mistaking it. Did she suddenly live in a world where females didn't exist? How preposterous was that? Then an intensely disconcerting feeling of dread settled heavily in the pit of her stomach at the thought of being the only girl amongst a group of seemingly teenage boys.

The blonde-haired boy jumped down into the cage with her and it rattled from his weight. She backed as far away from him as she possibly could, immediately distrusting. He squinted at her, eyes narrowed as he drank in the sight of her as if he'd never seen anything like her before.

"Slim it, you shuckheads!" he hollered up at them when their chattering continued, sounding annoyed. He carefully stepped closer to her to get a better view, holding his hands up in a pacifying manner as if afraid she'd pounce. "Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you," he told her. His voice was coated thickly with an English accent. He seemed dumbfounded as he looked her over once more. "You really are a girl," he murmured disbelievingly.

She wasn't sure if she should be offended or not by his surprise.

"It is a girl," he finally called up to the group of boys and they chattered amongst themselves, seeming both pleasantly surprised but also unconventionally worried.

She bit her lip, trying to fold as much into herself as she possibly could, wrapping her arms around her knees and pulling them into her chest.

"Hey, you're alright," he said quietly, calmly. He edged forward a bit awkwardly, like he wasn't sure how to handle her. He knelt down, readjusting himself into a crouch and favoring his right leg. She eyed him warily. "My name's Newt," he gestured towards himself as if she needed verification. "Do you remember your name?"

She furrowed her eyebrows and clenched her jaw, a wave of sadness hitting her like a ton of bricks. Mutely, she shook her head.

"Alright," he said softly. "Don't worry about that, it'll come back to you. I promise. Let's just take this one step at a time, yeah?" Newt reached out a hand to her, not attempting to move any closer and ultimately leaving it up to her whether or not she chose to take it. "It's okay, I promise none of us are going to hurt you. But you might be a bit more comfortable if you're not stuck in this thing."

She kept her eyes skeptically on his hand, unsure if she should accept it. She trailed her gaze up to his face and upon first glance there wasn't anything intimidating or mistrusting about it. She had a feeling that if she didn't follow him out she'd eventually be dragged kicking and screaming anyway and that was the last thing she wanted.

Cautiously, she unraveled herself and hesitantly reached a hand forward to place it in his larger, rougher one.

"That's it, come on."

He helped lift her to her feet and she wobbled slightly at being upright after so long of sitting. Newt kept a tight hold of her hand as she regained her balance. Finally standing straight, she realized that she wasn't much shorter than him and that she was fairly tall. Her nose reached just a hair above his chin.

He led her to the side of the cage where a boy with dark skin reached down and held out his hands for her to take. Wary again, she glanced at Newt out of the corner of her eye and he nodded his head slightly, motioning her onward. Returning forward, she took the boy's outstretched hands and Newt placed his own on her waist. Together, the two of them lifted her out of the cage and onto solid ground.

She squinted again, feeling the heat of the open air as she looked from side to side, eyes catching a vast field of greenery. That's not what startled her though.

Surrounding them on all four sides stood a wall, extending as high as the eye could see, nearly disappearing into the blue, cloudless sky above.

Wherever they were, they were imprisoned. She felt the claustrophobia she never realized she had gnawing at the deep recesses of her brain, making her skin crawl. She had to swallow the bile rising up in her throat. She couldn't panic.

Newt pulled himself up out of the cage and the doors closed with a piercing clang that made her jump nearly a foot in the air, as if the cage had been waiting for them to leave. He offered her his hand again and she warily allowed him to help her up.

The boy with the dark skin who helped pull her out of the cage spoke in a deep, commanding voice.

"Get the supplies out of there before they pull the Box back down!"

In response a few of the guys re-opened the cage doors and clambered inside as if it were something so casual and fleeting that it didn't register to them how horrified she'd felt being trapped inside it seconds ago. The boy then turned his attention to her.

"I'm Alby. Nick usually greets the newbies but he's caught up right now so you're gonna have to settle with me," Alby tilted his head. "Welcome to the Glade, Greenie."

I know, I know. She has another story. Time to riot in the streets. Don't blame this one on me. Blame it on The Death Cure because I'd been doing just fine not being obsessed with TMR until I saw TDC in theaters and I lost my freaking mind. I actually had this story posted a long time ago but took it down because I didn't have much time to work on it. I've been revamping it ever since I saw TDC and I couldn't resist posting it back up after like two years of not touching it. That's why it may seem familiar to some of you.

I'm going to keep this short but basically I already have eleven chapters written but I'm going to pace myself and update slowly. I may post chapter two relatively quick though to give you guys an idea of what the story is going to be like. I'm taking bits and pieces from both the movies and the books and the rest I'm just making it up as I go. I've seen the movies more recently than I've read the books so chances are the story is going to be heavily influenced by the films. I almost just wanted to cut out all of the first movie and jump right into The Scorch Trials but I'd already written so much of them in the maze that it just felt wrong to skip over it. So here we go. As always, comments and criticism are always welcome. Thanks for listening to me rant.