So how about we all pretend that I didn't take thirty gajillion years to update? Yes?

Again, I am so sorry you guys. Life is just...crazy and getting crazier every single year. I'm taking some pretty important exams this year and I've been this close to having a mental breakdown so I really just had to step away from everything for a while. But my exams end next week, which means THIS BITCH IS FREE FOR EIGHT MONTHS BEFORE UNI STARTS.

And that means tonsssss of updates.

Okay, I'll let you get to the story. Just know that I love you guys so, so much and I never would've made it this far without you.

Happy reading!

Disclaimer: I do not own The Maze Runner.

It Tolls For Thee

Minho had never been afraid of dying.

They had walked a fine line, him and death, from the very first day he'd been sent into the Glade and known he had to be a Runner. He had understood the very real likelihood that one day his luck would run out, that there would come a time when he would no longer trace the pathways of the Maze or come dashing back through the Doors, breathless and gasping, as the sun set beyond the stone walls.

He had understood but not accepted - not when he'd staggered through the Maze with Alby over his shoulders, not when the Doors had stopped closing, or Thomas had told him what they would have to do to escape.

It hadn't been until Chuck had bled out in front of him that death had become real in a way it had never been before, a phantom he could no longer outrace.

Alby. Ben. Chuck. Winston. He repeated their names like a prayer in his head every night before he went to sleep, their names and the names of the countless others ripped apart by the Grievers or swallowed by the Scorch. A reminder that it could so easily have been him instead if he had been a split second slower, a half an inch closer.

There had been no funerals for any of them. No time to pay their last respects when they were running for their lives. No time to even take in the fact that they were dead.

Minho wondered if the corpses of all those who'd died trying to escape the Maze still lay where they had fallen, eaten away by rot and decay, just another part of the ruin and destruction around them.

A macabre thought, but perhaps oddly fitting for a funeral.

Smoke spiraled up into the air, drifting away in the wind that swooped through the clearing. The pyre was almost gone now, devoured by the blazing flames that had razed the wood to the ground in minutes.

Minho had realized, somewhere in the haze of shock and numbness that still hung over him, that there was no time to bury the bodies anymore. They would have to burn them - the ones that would inevitably follow. He had given the order, hating himself for doing so.

But there was no one else to do it. No one else could bear to think of such cold, practical matters when one of their own had just been taken from them.

The smell of death still hung in the air, tainting the flowery smell of freesia and lavender, the crackle of wood smoke and pine.

He hated it.

Hated that death had found him even here, in the last place he'd been able to think of as a sanctuary.

There had been too much death of late.

The funerals of the other Immunes had been haunting - but it had been nothing compared to the pain of losing a Glader.

Minho had known what was coming when Aris had begun screaming but it hadn't stopped him from running to his friend, from trying to restrain his hands behind his back and keep the inevitable prospect of his death at bay.

It hadn't worked, of course.

Those familiar bruises had blossomed across his body of their own accord, his skin splitting open without the aid of his nails, blood vessels bursting in his eyes. He had died screaming, just like all the others.

It had been a message, Minho knew. A clear one.

You are not safe. None of you.

They'd almost brought it on themselves, really, recklessly discussing their own safety while other Immunes died. They had practically waved a crimson flag in WICKED's face, a taunt to push them as far as they could.

WICKED had responded in kind.

His eyes drifted across the clearing.

Harriet and Sonya stood at the edge of the blaze, clinging to each other as if the other was the only thing keeping them afloat. He watched as Sonya reached up to kiss the edge of Harriet's mouth, tears trickling down both their cheeks.

It was harder for them. They'd known Aris for years - worked with him, fought with him, bled with him. They'd made their way out of hell together, the way he and Thomas and Newt had.

The pain of breaking of a bond like that would be almost unbearable - a pain he had shouldered himself for three long years when he'd believed Newt was dead.

He had been given a second chance.

Harriet and Sonya would not.

Next to them, Thomas and Teresa stood hand in hand. He could see Teresa turning to whisper something softly to Thomas, Thomas' face softening as he tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear.

Something hard and bitter tightened in his chest.

They had someone - Harriet and Sonya and Thomas and Teresa and Newt and Ana. Someone to turn to, to share their grief and sorrows with, to lean on when the times got too hard. Someone who would be their rock, and theirs only.

He did not begrudge them that love, not when he saw firsthand how happy it made them. No part of him, no matter how bitter, would ever want to see that light fade from Thomas' eyes, or the smile drop from Newt's face.

After everything they had been through, it was the least they deserved.

And yet some small part of him yearned for the same kind of love, for someone who would put him first, always, unconditionally - for someone with whom he did not have to be the leader of the Paradise, or the one who had to make all the hard calls...but just himself.

Just Minho.

"Minho?"

He turned.

Felicity stood a few feet behind him. Her dark hair was pulled into a tight braid that curled over her shoulder, stray wisps fluttering in the breeze. A Launcher was strapped over her shoulder, two knives sheathed in the holders attached to either thigh.

She looked impossibly tiny somehow, even though Minho was well aware that that she had found her way out of hell just like every other Glader, had most likely fought and hurt and killed just as they had. She didn't look like any of those things in that moment, not even with multitude of weapons strapped to her body.

She looked...normal.

Or she would have, to anyone else.

Minho caught the flickering shadows in her slate grey eyes, so familiar it was as if he was staring into a mirror. A haunted look that gave away the horrors she had experienced and was expecting to experience again.

He knew why she was there instantly, the realization lodging inside him like deadweight, and yet he couldn't say the words.

If he never opened his mouth, perhaps they could pretend that nothing was happening - that it was just a normal morning in Paradise and that they were two people thrown together by pure circumstance.

The last dregs of smoke billowed into the air, drawing his eye back to the barely sputtering remains of the pyre. Ash lay scattered over the dewy grass, a spattering of fine grey dust barely visible to anyone not looking closely.

All that remained of Aris.

His hopes and dreams, his loves and desires...burned away with his body, reduced to nothing but dust.

WICKED had done that to him - to him and to the other bodies buried beneath the grass, reduced to crumbling bones and decaying flesh.

There would be no pretending, not if he wanted to give the friends the justice they deserved - the justice that they had been robbed off.

Minho met Felicity's eyes. "Let's go."

The only sounds in the forest were the gentle whisper of the wind through the trees and the soft thuds of booted feet on grass and mud.

The silence didn't do anything to settle the knots in Thomas' stomach, but he couldn't bring himself to break it - didn't even know how to. What could he say to stop the tears still trickling down Sonya's cheeks, to soothe the trembling in Teresa's shoulders? How could any words be enough to smooth away the lines on Newt's face, to break through the stony facade on Minho's?

Nothing would make it better - not when one of their own had been taken from them.

Something had settled in Thomas' chest when Aris died - something angry and bitter and razor-sharp, fueled by the horror and pain of the boy's last moments. It urged him forward, forced him to keep taking one step after another even though every instinct he had begged him to turn back.

Thomas hadn't told anyone, not even Teresa, how much the idea of going back to the cliff bothered him. Every cell in his body recoiled whenever he thought of the place, a flashing red sign that screamed stay away!

He wanted nothing more than to go straight back to his cabin, to curl up with Teresa and pull the blankets over their heads and pretend that the rest of the world had ceased to exist.

But he couldn't.

Aris' mangled body flashed across his mind every time he thought of giving in to that selfish longing inside him, a grotesque reminder of the blood that would now forever stain his hands.

It was his fault Aris had died - for failing to see what he had to do when every clue had been so obviously, so neatly, laid in his path.

He had failed - and Aris had paid the price.

The thought of that drove him forward, kept his steps sure and even as he spotted the trickling brook in the woods, as he followed the water to where the tree line ended and the stream plunged itself over the precipice.

Thomas stopped, faintly hearing the sounds of the others coming to a halt behind him as he gazed out over the sprawling vista below him.

Once upon a time he had thought it beautiful, and some small part of him still did - but the rest of him saw only the evil that WICKED had tainted it with, the poison threaded through the scenic valleys and towering mountains.

Thomas tore his gaze away from the scene below him, turning back to face the Gladers. His eyes met Minho's, devoid of their usual sarcastic amusement and filled with a haunting emptiness that he hadn't seen in more than three years.

"What's your plan, Thomas?" Newt broke the silence, his voice quiet but hard. "You must have thought of something when you wanted us to start here."

Thomas nodded. "Teresa and I first lost contact when I fell from the cliff. That means the Block is located somewhere near here, most likely around the cliff itself. I suggest that we split into two teams, Teresa and I on one each, and move in separate directions. We'll keep calling to each other until we can't hear each other anymore. That way we'll be able to narrow down the location of the Block so it's easier to search for."

Thomas could tell by the look on Teresa's face that she didn't like the idea any more than she did. Something felt intrinsically wrong about splitting up here, especially when they had no idea what WICKED had in store for them, but it was the only plan Thomas had - the only plan any of them had.

Teresa's eyes caught his, still red and teary from the funeral that morning. He could read the anxiety in them, knew that what had happened to Aris had thrown the likelihood of their own survival into doubt.

The last time we split up near this cliff, you disappeared.

Thomas tried for a smile. But I came back. That must be some kind of sign right?

He didn't tell her what he was really thinking, but he knew that he didn't have to - knew that the same thought that had driven him here, had kept him walking even when every facet of his being rebelled against it, was running through her mind as well.

We have no choice.

They hadn't been walking long when Teresa felt Thomas' presence vanish from her mind.

"Stop," she said aloud, and the party of Gladers walking around her halted instantly. Minho turned back from where he was leading, eyes narrowed as he stopped beside her.

"He's gone? You're sure?"

"Yes," she answered immediately. There was no mistaking this feeling, the complete and utter silence that had pervaded her mind in the days Thomas had gone missing, in the years when they had first entered Paradise.

"Walk back a bit," Minho instructed. "Try to get a feel for exactly when it starts."

Teresa obeyed, stepping backwards until the silence in her mind vanished, replaced by the constant low hum that reassured her of Thomas' presence.

Teresa?

His anxiety was palpable even through his mental voice.

You felt it too? she sent back.

Oh thank God. Yes. This must be the starting radius of the block.

I'm more concerned about finding the end. It must be pretty far if you couldn't manage to contact me at all in the days you were out here.

She could almost feel the weariness in his tone as he replied, knowing that he was thinking about the mammoth task ahead of them.

Newt says meet at the bottom of the cliff. We'll talk there.

Be safe.

You too.

The walk to the bottom of the cliff took less time than Teresa expected, occupied with the silence inside her head. It scared her to know that anything could be happening to Thomas and she wouldn't know, even if he was just on the other side of the cliff.

Her relief when she finally caught sight of the other Gladers, Thomas and Newt at the head, was immeasurable. She could tell by the look on Thomas' face that he felt the same, and he squeezed her into a quick hug when they met at the bottom of the cliff, slipping his fingers into hers in a gesture meant to comfort himself as much as her.

"So we know where it starts," Sonya started. "What now?"

"We need to see where it ends," Thomas responded. "Assuming the Block is at the center of the radius of the frequency, we'll be able to find the rough location by determining the area the frequency is broadcasted over."

"But that could take forever," Newt argued, looking around at the spread of meadow that extended all the way to the mountain range at the far end of the valley. "Even WICKED wouldn't expect us to be able to manage that. They're not going to give us an impossible task when that defeats their agenda."

Teresa's gaze drifted to the cliff that they were standing beside, the voices of her friends drowned out by the roar of the waterfall. The water tumbled down the rock face, crashing into the pool that lay at the bottom. It was strangely beautiful to watch, the flow of water over stone - a reminder that the world would continue to move, that the forces of nature would take their course with or without her.

Except that, as she looked closer, there was something not so natural about it.

Frowning, Teresa gently disengaged her fingers from Thomas', moving slightly away from the rest of the group to scrutinize the cliff more closely. She couldn't place her finger on what exactly was bothering her, only that there was something about the structure that seemed out of place.

It looked, she thought absently, following the path of the water from top to bottom, almost like a wall.

A wall.

The realization hit her in a flash.

The cliff wasn't unnatural because it was imperfect - it was unnatural because it was too perfect.

Cliffs, she remembered from some long-ago geography lesson, were formed from erosion. They would never be perfectly straight or smooth the way this one was, which meant only one thing - this cliff hadn't been formed naturally.

It had been placed there.

For them.

The second realization dawned on her in an instant.

"Stop!" Teresa called back, whirling around to the discussion still taking place behind her. "We don't need to search the place."

Sonya looked confused. "How are we going to find the Block then?"

Teresa shook her head. "We've been thinking about this all wrong. We've been imagining that the Block's frequency is a circle, and that the Block is at the center of it. It isn't."

"It isn't at the center?" Newt interrupted, looking equally confused.

"No, it isn't even a circle. The radius of the frequency is like a giant wall. It extends vertically and it blocks everything behind it - that's why Thomas couldn't contact me when he went missing. It didn't matter how far he was when he was on the wrong side of the Block the whole time."

"I'm still not clear on the finding the Block part," Minho broke in. "Even if it's a wall, we still need to find the place it originates from."

"Yes, and we just agreed that they're not about making us do the impossible this time. So why would they make us waste time searching for the very thing that will give them what they want?"

Newt's brow furrowed. "You mean it's something they know we'll find easily."

"And they were right," Teresa nodded, and turned back to the cliff towering over them. "We already have."

For a split second, there was absolute silence and Teresa knew the other Gladers were seeing what she was - the beautiful, constructed perfection of the cliff, the unnaturalness that accompanied anything touched by WICKED.

"Shucking hell," Minho whispered. "It's inside."

So that happened.

We're getting so close to the end now,you guys, and I am beyond insanely excited. I honestly can't believe this is really happening. I'm so grateful you guys have continued to stick with me, and I promise you will get a new chapter very very soon because it is the beginning of the end.

So many twists and turns yet to come...and I am so excited to write them.

As always, please review to let me know your thoughts on this chapter, or on life in general, because I always enjoy hearing from you guys.

Till next time!