Hey, universe, when we said that we wished reality were more like fiction…we didn't mean give us an uncontrollable virus that rages through the global population while the government is absolutely useless and screws things up even more? I just wanted some cool powers and no homework?

Anyway. Ahem. How are you all doing in a worldwide pandemic?

Apart from my stupid questions, yall I genuinely forgot that the last time I updated this fic was in frickin 2018. I was honestly thinking that my last update was in November 2019 until I went onto my author page and then was like…shit.

But my stupidity aside, I genuinely adore and appreciate all of you so much. I read absolutely every single review that you guys write, and seeing you guys tell me things like the fact that I inspire you, or you love my writing, and you're constantly waiting for updates…it means so much more than I can say.

Thank you for everything. You are the reason that I've gotten this far, and I couldn't be happier to journey to the end with all of you.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Maze Runner.

Into the Unknown

Golden light spilled across the valley as the sun began its slow descent towards the farthest horizon.

It was nearing twilight now, the darkening shadows of the mountains in the distance mingling with the final rays of sunlight, bathing the fields and meadows in a flurry of golds and pinks and blues. A soft breeze swept over the wide expanse of land, rustling through the trees, stirring the tops of the meandering rivers into sprays of white.

There couldn't have been a more beautiful place to live, a more beautiful sight to see. A real-life Garden of Eden, a paradise mentioned in books so ancient they'd been nearly forgotten by the world.

Thomas hated it.

Every inch of him radiated revulsion for the beauty around him, this place he'd finally known happiness and peace, this place he'd believed safe – only to find that he'd been lured into a trap like an unsuspecting fly into a spider-web.

It seemed to get harder to take in air the closer they drew to the looming cliff, breaths coming in soft sharp bursts with every step he took, spider legs crawling up his spine and prickling the hair on the back of his neck. Nothing but the Maze had ever evoked this response in him, this bone-chilling dread that crept into every cell and refused to leave – the mark of anything tainted by WICKED.

They stopped at the base of the cliff, right beside the place where the thundering fall met the river. A light mist shrouded the intersection, cooling the air around them and tossing up light sprays that clung to them like film over their skin.

Thomas let his gaze wander, drifting up the imposing rockface before them. It was straight and smooth all the way up, sanded down to a perfect finish without a ridge or line out of place. Teresa had been right – this was no cliff formed from the natural interaction of river and stone.

This had been created for them.

A moment of silence hung amongst them all as they gazed up at the massive edifice, each one of the Gladers coming to the same conclusion that Teresa had.

"We need to go back," Sonya said finally. "We need to go back and tell the rest and come back with a proper force to battle WICKED."

"We can't go back," Thomas said immediately, his voice coming out too loud and rushed even to his own ears. He tried to settle it back down, to project level-headed confidence instead of desperation. "Look around you, Sonya. We don't have enough time to go back, gather everyone and then make our way back here. It's almost nightfall and by then it'll be too late for another Immune."

"We don't even know what we're walking into," Harriet protested. "We're going in blind. WICKED could shoot us in the face immediately and we'll have no way to defend ourselves."

"They're not going to shoot us," Thomas argued. "They went to all this trouble to get us back. It has to be about something more than just killing us. No, whatever it is we're going into, it's not our death. At least, not right away."

"Very reassuring," Gally remarked dryly.

"It's the truth," Thomas shot back. "I can't make you any promises because we know this is WICKED. We know that they killed innocent people to get us here. We know that if don't give them what they want as quickly as we can, our friends will die. So, you can do whatever you want, but I am not going to let that happen."

"He's right," Teresa said. "We can't let anyone else die when we can stop it. We're armed, and we know who we're up against. That's the best we can ask for, really."

"Great, we're all bloody inspired," Newt quipped. "What would we do without you two do-gooders?"

Teresa cracked a smile and hit him lightly across the arm.

"If anyone wants to leave, you can," Thomas told the group. "No one will hold it against you."

Not a single person moved.

"Don't be stupid, you shank." Minho rolled his eyes, although his voice held no hint of ridicule or sarcasm. "We're all with you to the end, you know that."

Thomas looked around at them all, the people he had journeyed to hell and back with. Harriet and Sonya and Felicity, dried tear tracks still on their cheeks. Newt and Minho, faces made of stone, ready to have his back till the end as they always had. Gally, his arms crossed and expression unreadable. Frypan, shoulders tensed but solid and dependable as always. Teresa, her face lovely and fierce, by his side as she had been from the very beginning.

Every single Glader left had made the trip to the cliff – even though they hadn't expected to find the Block that day, let alone in a matter of hours. Thomas himself had anticipated searching the area around the cliff for days, if they were lucky, and yet everyone WICKED wanted was standing next to him.

Almost as though they'd known all along that tonight would be their final stand.

Newt stepped up to Minho's side and nodded silently, his eyes meeting Thomas' with the steady sureness he'd displayed from that very first day in the Glade. Frypan followed, then Felicity, Harriet and Sonya – and lastly, Gally, locking his gaze on Thomas with a kind of harsh intensity that surprised him. Teresa looked at him with those blazing blue eyes, like ice laid over fire, and he knew without words that she would never for a second entertain the thought of leaving him to fight WICKED alone.

Thomas swallowed the sudden lump in his throat, feeling once again that heavy mantle of leadership upon his shoulders. He hadn't felt it much in the last three years when he'd left the running of the Paradise largely to Minho, but he'd known even in the Glade that there were some things even Minho would turn to him for – that there were decisions of life and death that people looked only to him to make.

He nodded back at them all, grateful beyond words for their companionship, grateful that even here at what seemed like the end of the world with their lives on the line, they would not abandon him.

Together, they turned towards the cliff.

Looking up at the towering monolith before him, Minho was uncomfortably, eerily reminded of the day he'd first woken up in the Glade.

He had been the first group in, one of five including Alby that they'd dumped in the Maze. He'd never felt as weak and powerless as he had that first day, disoriented and confused, screaming for help with the other boys until his voice grew hoarse – until they accepted that no one was coming.

He'd vowed never to let himself feel that helpless again, committing himself to finding a way out, pounding through the shifting corridors of the Maze from dawn to dusk with only the burning intensity of his determination powering him.

Now, the very real nature of how powerless he really was, how WICKED was making them dance to their bidding like puppets on a string, was starting to set in.

He swallowed back the rage building in his throat, the fear at the thought of going back to the place he'd sacrificed so much to leave. Wallowing in his feelings wasn't a luxury he could afford. It was the very first lesson he'd taught himself back in the Glade – emotions got you killed.

Actions kept you alive.

"How do we get to the Block?" he asked to the group at large, banishing all thoughts and recollections from his mind. "We aren't exactly equipped to drill through solid rock."

"Or abseil up a shucking cliff," Frypan grumbled. "If they want us back so damn bad, you'd think they could just give us an exit sign. Thomas, you sure they're trying to make this easy?"

"They have to," Thomas said distractedly, scanning every inch of the sheer cliff face with that meticulous eye that didn't miss a detail. "For whatever reason, they don't have two years to watch us try to find a way out this time."

They were all perched on a wide, flat outcropping next to the base of the waterfall, as close as they could get without falling in. The water thundered on beside them, changing from stormy to smooth in an instant as it hit the wide pool at the bottom and twisted into the slow turns of the river.

Minho found himself strangely transfixed by the dancing lights at the base of the cliff where the flowing plume of water met the placid calmness of the stream, crashing together in a storm of white foam and iridescent rainbows. The lights flickered in and out of the mist, a twinkling array of colours that rose and fell, leaping above the fray before –

It disappeared.

Minho blinked.

Blinked again, just to make sure he wasn't seeing things.

Apparently, he was still well and truly in control of his vision because the sight before him hadn't changed in the slightest – even if what he was seeing was absolutely impossible.

The entire bottom section of the waterfall had completely and utterly vanished.

Minho stared at the sudden yawning emptiness, unable to comprehend what his brain was insisting existed before him. The roar of the pounding cascade still reverberated in his ears, powerful and pulsing, although no water fell into the small pool below. The falling shower simply evaporated into thin air halfway down, as though some invisible bucket had been placed to catch it. The cliff wall extended beyond the edge of the cut-off waterline for a few inches before simply disappearing, a hundred tons of pure granite winking out of existence and leaving behind nothing but a gaping black void.

No – not just a gaping black void.

Minho took a step forward, peering into the darkness.

The river didn't begin from the small pool at the base of the cliff as he'd previously thought. The wide circle of water stretched out into the beckoning hollow, narrowing into what looked like a small brook that led into the heart of the cliff itself, a stream where solid stone had been just moments ago.

Minho stepped off the rock before he'd even thought about it, feet moving on autopilot across the small stretch of grass between the outcropping and the opening in the cliff. He could vaguely hear Thomas and Newt calling his name, voices turning from confusion to alarm, but he didn't stop. They couldn't see it, he knew suddenly, with a certainty that emanated from his bones. They couldn't see what he was seeing.

Not until he showed them.

He stopped finally just before the opening, bare inches from the line where stone turned into air.

The smart thing to do would be to step away, turn back to the others or go back to home base and collect as many people as he could before attempting to walk into what could be certain death. It would mean the death of another Immune, but those were the sort of decisions Minho had always been forced to make as a leader – to weigh the death of one innocent against the death of dozens more.

Despite everything Thomas had said, despite his certainty – there were no promises when it came to WICKED. There was no way of anticipating their moves, no assurances of their allegiances or their actions – and Minho knew all too well how swiftly death could arrive.

Yes, stepping back would be the smart thing to do. It was what Alby would have done, so long ago in the Glade. It was what a leader should do.

But Minho was also a Runner.

He'd gone out into the Maze every day, not knowing if this was the day he'd never come back, not because it had been logical but because it was simply what he had to do. He'd seen Thomas jump into certain death time and time again, fighting instead of fleeing, sacrificing instead of protecting, doing that which was reckless and foolish and dangerous – but also right. He'd learned through blood and destruction that there were moments when you had to jump into the abyss on nothing more than gut instinct, doing not the smart thing but the one taken by a leap of faith.

He stepped into the looming darkness.

Minho had gone mad.

Stark, raving mad.

Teresa exchanged a bewildered look with Thomas as they followed the other boy, who was now standing precariously on a slice of grass next to the water's edge and staring into solid stone as though he could bore a hole through it with his gaze.

"Minho!" Thomas called again, serious alarm beginning to edge into his voice as his friend refused to turn around or acknowledge him.

"What the shucking hell is he doing?" Newt muttered next to him, the whole group now mere yards from Minho. Teresa scanned the rock wall but saw nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that would command rapt attention or fascination, and yet Minho was still gazing at it as though bewitched.

Then he stepped through the rock and vanished.

Teresa's heart dropped to the bottom of her feet.

"Minho!" she yelled, echoed collectively by Thomas and Newt on either side, their screams reverberating off the rock and around the valley. She broke into a run, sure that this was some trick, something horrible orchestrated by WICKED – that Minho was now gone or dead or worse –

She was mere seconds from colliding with the cliff wall when it suddenly rippled, shimmering like a mirage before disappearing completely.

Teresa stopped short, as did every Glader coming up behind her. She gawked at the sudden darkness ahead of her, trying to recalibrate what had just happened with what she was seeing.

"Is it just me," Newt asked slowly, "or did a giant hole just open up in the cliff?"

"Definitely not just you," Sonya said breathlessly, her voice a mixture of awe and disbelief.

Before anyone else could say anything, Minho's voice sounded through the blackness.

"Thomas!" he was yelling, his voice sounding as though it were coming from a great distance, so far that they had to strain to make out the words. "You need to see this!"

Thomas pushed past them immediately, stepping into the carved-out opening without hesitation. Following him, Teresa saw a small pathway leading into the cliff, wrapping around the side of the opening on level with the ground they were standing on. The falling cascade above had frozen in mid-air, just a few yards from their heads as they passed under it, and she quickened her pace at the thought of that mass of water falling on her – likely with enough force to crack open her skull.

She paused when she was a few steps past the edge of the opening, safely away from the waterfall, and let her eyes adjust to the darkness.

It wasn't quite as dark as she'd thought, she realized as her surroundings came into sight. The fading sunlight trickled through the opening of the cave, providing just enough illumination for her to get a sense of what was around them.

They were in a cavern of some sort, large and impossibly high, stretching up into the heart of the hulking mountain. Stalactites protruded from the ceiling far above, long and crumbling, one of them breaking off and plunging into the water below as she watched. The small stream widened out once again as it approached the farthest wall of the cavern, tumbling into a wide, bubbling pool. It looked innocent and inviting at first glance, but something about the way the water fizzed and popped warned her that this wasn't a pool she wanted to take a dip in anytime soon.

The pathway they were on clung to the side of the cavern, climbing upward as it followed the curve of the wall all the way to the farthest edge where it joined a wide, rounded rock above the sparkling pool. Her eyes caught on a small shadowy figure next to the pseudo platform, moving quickly along a ledge before it leaped onto the rock. The figure straightened up, dark hair catching the faint daylight, and she knew it was Minho.

She'd just taken a step forward when Thomas threw out a hand to stop her.

"Careful," he murmured quietly, his eyes fixed on something below. "This pathway isn't very wide, and we definitely don't want to fall."

He pointed underneath them to something Teresa had missed.

The cavern floor descended gradually from the point where they entered, sloping ever downwards as their walkway ascended, reaching its apex at the circular outcropping Minho was on so that there was a good hundred-foot drop between him and the frothing water below. Littered along the cavern floor were dozens of stalagmites, wicked spikes that jutted up from the ground and were clearly sharp enough to slice clean through flesh and bone.

Ahead of them, the footpath narrowed until it was just a sliver of rock jutting out of the cavern wall, no more than a few inches wide. It dawned on Teresa with a sickening pang that they would have to press themselves flat against the wall and inch along the path sideways to prevent themselves from falling and being impaled.

Thomas had clearly come to the same realization.

"Listen up!" he called to the other Gladers, huddled in a group near the cave entrance. "Everyone needs to walk single file along the path. Turn sideways, hug the wall and whatever you do, do not look down."

"Of course not," Newt said sardonically. "Why ever would we look down when we're terrified of impaling ourselves on bloody spikes?"

"Will that even support all of us?" Harriet asked dubiously. "It looks old and crumbling as it is."

"I don't know," Thomas admitted. "But I don't think we have much choice."

"We should take it in teams," Teresa suggested. "Tom, you and Newt can go ahead first – "

"No," Newt cut in almost instantly. "I – should be at the end. Just in case something goes wrong, and we need to have your backs."

Teresa cut him a sideways glance at the uncharacteristic stumble in his voice, puzzled, but Newt's gaze was fixed firmly on Thomas.

"Okay," Thomas agreed. "Harriet and Felicity can come with me. Gally, Frypan and Sonya can follow us, and Teresa, you and Newt bring up the rear."

He glanced at her then, those dark brown eyes flashing with worry – worry for her, that he would not be there to protect her if anything happened. She instinctively reached out to soothe him with her mind, remembering a fraction of a second too late that she couldn't do that anymore. She silently cursed the Block, the distance it created between them, the crushing silence where his usual familiar hum should be.

"Don't worry," she said quietly, so only Thomas would hear. "You're not getting rid of me that easily."

His mouth turned up at the corners, his voice gentling to that softness he only had with her. "I love you."

"I love you too," she told him, pouring every piece of her heart into the words. "Be safe."

Harriet and Felicity moved up to the front to join Thomas, faces grim and set as they began their trek along the sloping path.

They were able to walk normally for the first few feet but then the passageway began to taper inwards, shrinking significantly until it eventually levelled off about halfway up the wall, leaving the small group barely enough space to wedge their feet as they moved. Teresa's stomach knotted and unknotted as she watched Thomas inch along the tiny ledge, chest pressed to the wall, hands spread out at his sides to help him orient himself.

She felt as though she could hear her heartbeat pounding in her ears, rising to a shattering crescendo and leaping out of her chest when Felicity's foot slipped over the edge and she almost lost her grip. She clutched at Newt with frantic panic, certain that she was about to watch another friend die before her eyes, nearly collapsing with relief when the dark-haired girl managed to find her footing again.

Her heart settled a fraction when the group finally reached the furthest wall, stepping onto the wide platform to reunite with Minho. She saw the taller boy grab Thomas in a relieved hug and wondered how on earth Minho had managed to make the crossing all by himself, and so quickly.

"He's just like that, the shank," Newt scoffed at her side as though he'd read her thoughts. She turned to him in surprise and found that he'd followed her gaze across to Minho on the other side. "He's always been able to wrangle himself through any dangerous situation with barely a graze. Sometimes it's like he doesn't even realize how close he is to dying."

"Keeper of the Runners," Teresa said lightly, trying not to let on any hint of the fear that was slowly creeping up her throat. "I guess he got the position for a reason."

She turned to Newt as Gally, Frypan and Sonya set off across the pathway towards their friends, abruptly noticing for the first time that Newt's face was paler than usual. His hand was cold and clammy in her grip, goose bumps rising on his skin as he looked out across the vast chasm.

"Newt?" she asked, concerned. "Is everything okay?"

"Fine," he said quickly, pulling his arm out of her hold. "Come on, we're up next."

Gally and Sonya were almost across the wall, slowly but surely closing the distance between themselves and the rest of the Gladers, moving carefully but swiftly until they'd reached the rock and were pulled to safety.

It was their turn.

Teresa took the lead, resolutely averting her eyes from the cavern floor as she began her walk up the slowly climbing path.

Ten steps before her shoulder began brushing the wall.

Five steps before she was forced to turn, pressing herself as close to the rock as she could and scuttling to her side like a crab.

The world came into hyper-focus, her brain meticulously picking apart every single iota of information her senses offered. She was intensely aware of rough granite beneath her fingertips, the heavy stickiness of sweat on the nape of her neck, Newt's soft breathing as he followed in her footsteps. She could feel small bits of rock crumbling away beneath her soles, the press-and-release of her shoes as they fought for traction on the inclining walkway, fighting to not slip backward as the path continued to curl up, up, up. The empty nothingness behind her seemed to take on a life of its own, a spectre looming over her shoulder just waiting for her to fall into its grip, reminding her that she was a hairsbreadth away from dropping like an anchor into the open air and bleeding out on the cavern floor.

Her fingers began to shake.

No. No, no, no.

She had not come all this way and sacrificed so much just to fall off a ledge and die on a spike.

Teresa forced herself to keep her attention solely on the rock before her, counting every ridge and line in the wall, keeping her hands and feet moving as she tallied. Her heart, pounding out of control like hummingbird's wings, slowed ever-so-slightly into a discordant rhythm with the one-two of her feet.

She had counted 27 ridges when she felt the prickling on the back of her neck.

She froze where she was, keeping her eyes firmly in front of her as she took stock of her surroundings. The space around her felt empty. Too empty.

Newt.

She whipped her head to the right to find him a few feet away from her, forehead pressed against the stone, fingers white-knuckled and gripping the wall for dear life. He was leaning heavily on his left leg, the way he did when his limp was acting up.

Teresa inched her way back over to his side, stopping close enough that their shoulders brushed against one another. "What is it?" she whispered to him, noting his trembling shoulders, the way his hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat.

The understanding hit in a flash.

She should have known from the minute he'd hesitated in talking to Thomas – the minute he'd declined to be first on a risky mission when he'd never let his friends run into danger without him, the minute he'd gazed out over the sheer drop and looked….afraid.

"I can't…do heights," Newt choked out in a gasp, confirming what she'd already guessed. "I can't be in a high place without remembering that moment when I stood on that Maze wall and jumped and all I felt was the absolute nothingness below me and the pure terror of knowing I was going to die alone."

The jump that had given him his limp and scarred him for life.

"You are not going to die," Teresa said firmly, injecting as much conviction into her voice as she could. "You are not going to die, Newt, and you are not alone."

With difficulty, Newt turned his head to face her. "You need to go. The others are waiting – you don't have much time. We're losing light by the minute as it is."

With slow horror, Teresa realized that he was right. She'd been so focused on making her way across that she hadn't noticed the light slowly fading from the cavern, the lengthening shadows as the sun began sinking below the horizon outside. Twilight in the Paradise usually lasted longer, keeping the night at bay for as long as possible, but even here it couldn't go on forever.

That was why Newt had insisted on going last, she realized. He'd been trying to let his friends make the crossing as quickly as possible before all visibility vanished, to get to safety without having him hold them back.

Already, the faces of the Gladers on the platform were shrouded in shadow, the last vestiges of sunlight pulling back from the farthest reaches of the cavern. She had minutes, if that, to make the crossing and reach the opposite side before night fell completely.

Panic rose up like a tidal wave at the thought of trying to navigate the cavern absolutely blind, but she forced it back, thinking only of the friend who needed her.

"I am not leaving you," she said flatly, her tone as point-blank and decided as she could make it. "Don't you even dare ask me again."

Newt huffed, half-amused and half-exasperated. "There's the Teresa we know and tolerate."

"Tolerate?" she asked, taking a step to the side, and thanking her lucky stars when Newt automatically followed. "I am deeply offended. My presence is a blessing."

"Maybe to dear Tommy, but no one else, I assure you," Newt shot back, breathless, only the slight quaver in his tone giving away the fact that he was faking light-heartedness. She knew as well as he that their conversation was a distraction, their minds scrambling to focus on something as petty as friendly ribbing with their lives on the line. "You know he's going to marry you someday."

Teresa spared a second to marvel at the fact that nearly hundreds of feet above the ground, with less than a quarter of an inch of space keeping her from certain death, heading to what could be a massacre, she could still have butterflies in her stomach at the thought of marrying Thomas.

"Well, you're certainly not going to be the shucking best man if you keep insulting me," she retaliated, letting her body move her on instinct. Hand, foot, hand, foot. "So, I'd start writing a nice, long apology letter if I were you."

"I'll make it my…first priority…once we're out of this lovely cavern."

Newt's voice trailed off and Teresa knew that he was falling back into the throes of his paralyzing terror again, even now when they were mere feet from safety. She could see Thomas and the rest gathered at the edge of the platform, focusing intently on them, afraid to make a sound for fear of startling them into a deadly slip.

Desperately, she cast her mind around for something, anything to say.

"Speaking of marriage," she started wildly, "what about you and my sister?"

"Ana?" Newt asked in genuine surprise.

"Yes, Ana," Teresa said. "Unless I have another sister somewhere that you're also shacking up with. In which case, it is my sisterly duty to beat you up for breaking her heart."

Newt let out a small laugh, although Teresa could hear the fear threaded beneath. "No beatings necessary. Ana is the only one for me."

"I'll be expecting you to ask for my permission," Teresa continued, barely daring to hope that they were actually approaching the end even as she felt the pathway begin to widen under her feet. "The sisterly duties never end, you know."

"I'll keep that in mind, love," Newt said back, his voice now starting to return to normal. "But for now, perhaps we could finally get off this bloody ledge?"

Teresa nearly wept with relief as they reached the final few feet of the walkway, the narrow path broadening out to merge with the platform. She could have easily dropped to the ground and kissed it had Thomas not swept her up in a crushing hug the minute she stepped foot on it.

"I was so scared," he said shakily into her ear, sweeping a hand down her curls, her back, as if reassuring himself that she was still there. "So scared. I thought I was going to watch you die – Teresa…"

He said her name like a prayer, reverent and awed, and she let herself sag into the circle of his arms like a rag doll. She had just strength left in her limp arms to wrap them around him, nestling her head into his shoulder.

"I told you," she murmured. "You're not going to be free of me that easily."

He laughed softly, drawing back to press a swift kiss to her lips. "I'm counting on that."

Teresa stepped away from his embrace, turning around to find Newt on his knees. His shoulders were heaving, palms pressed flat against the ground as Minho crouched beside him and said something in a voice too low for her to hear.

Whatever it was, Newt went still. Minho clapped a hand on his shoulder, and then stood back as Newt rose to his feet. Teresa moved closer to him, thankful to see that his eyes were clear, and his face had got some colour back into it.

"Thank you," Newt said quietly. "You didn't have to – "

"Yes, I did," she said, placing her hands on her hips and adopting a tone that brooked no argument. "You would have done it for me. Now don't be an idiot, and let's go fight WICKED."

The other boy grinned. "That's a motto I can get behind."

Teresa gave him a friendly nudge as they both joined the other Gladers waiting for them, gathered in a loose half-circle around something she couldn't make out. They cleared a path as the two of them approached, so that the object finally came into view.

It was a small podium built into the ground at the tip of the outcropping, like a shoot sprouting from the ground. This was no ordinary rock formation, though, not with those perfectly smooth sides and rounded edges. Like the cliff, this had been placed here for them.

There was something on top of it, Teresa noticed as she drew closer. The top of the podium was flat and even, except for a small depression in the centre. It was a neat square, sunk into the rock about an inch deep, and completely empty.

"What is this?"

"That's what we've been trying to figure out," Thomas replied. "I've checked it from top to bottom, and I can't find any hint as to what it might be."

"A way back to WICKED, maybe?" Newt suggested. "Some kind of clue to a hidden lair?"

"But where do we even go from here?" Felicity asked. "I can't see a way out except for the one we came in through."

"This must be our way out." Teresa frowned, crouching beside the podium to inspect it. "There must be something about it we just haven't seen yet."

"Hey!" Gally called, his voice coming from the place where the platform met the wall. "There's something here!"

Gally was peering at the rock as they approached, running his hands along a ridge that extended from the floor to about halfway up the wall. No, not a ridge, Teresa saw slowly. A cut in the wall, two parallel vertical lines and two parallel horizontal ones.

A door.

It was barely noticeable, especially in the now almost complete darkness. Sonya and Harriet had thankfully thought to pack torches with them, but the beam was painfully thin and hardly provided them enough light to see by. Teresa had to squint to make out the shape of the door, sunken into the rock just like the depression atop the podium.

"Well, there's our way out," Newt commented. "We just need to figure out how to open it."

Teresa glanced back at the podium. "How much do you want to bet those two things are connected?"

The group split in two, with Newt, Gally, Felicity and Harriet exploring the area near the door, and the rest of the Gladers heading back to the podium to crack the mystery of the empty square hole.

Teresa let Thomas and Minho scour the walls of the podium, her attention strangely drawn to the small depression. She traced her fingers over it absently, wrinkling her nose at the dust that collected on her skin. It clearly hadn't been touched for a long time –

Wait.

She paused, dragging her finger back to the area she'd just passed and scraping over it again.

There was something there – something so light and faint it would have been nearly impossible to see. She followed the line, clearing a path through the dust with her fingertip until a symbol stared back up at her, visible against the dirt – a stark, small W.

Fear raked cold fingers up her spine.

"Teresa?" Thomas asked, popping back up from where he'd been kneeling on the floor. "Did you find anything?"

Wordlessly, she pointed towards the hole.

Thomas looked at it, momentarily confused before his face darkened with understanding. "WICKED."

He reached in to trace the letter, following the path her fingers had taken just seconds before. He had just passed the intersection where the two connecting Vs met when he yanked his hand back with a shout, cursing as he pressed on his index finger with his other hand.

"What?" Teresa asked frantically, about to grab his hand and check for herself before she saw it.

A shining needle protruded from the centre of the W, barely the size of her smallest fingernail and gleaming with red that dripped down its sides and flowed into the grooves of the letter. She watched in transfixed horror as Thomas' blood filled the lines of the W, and the whole depression sank down into the podium.

"Access authorized," a tinny robotic voice boomed from behind them, where they had left Gally and the others. She whirled around to see that they had backed away from the door, which slid silently across motorized tracks straight into the side of the rock, leaving an opening in the stone just big enough to fit a human being. "Subject A1, please step up to the scanner for identity verification."

No one moved for the span of a heartbeat.

"Subject A1?" Harriet repeated into the stunned silence. "Who – "

"It's me," Thomas broke in, sounding disbelieving even as he moved towards the open doorway. "I must have opened it – they cut me, got some of my blood – "

His index finger was still dripping red as he stopped by the door.

A small panel in the rock had slid open, revealing an infrared scanner locked safely behind a glass screen, conveniently at eye level. It flashed scarlet once, twice, then beeped.

"Identity verified," the voice chimed. "Access permitted."

"Wait," Sonya interrupted. "Let's check and make sure it's not booby trapped first."

She'd just braced a foot on the edge of the doorway, ready to climb in, when the scanner began beeping rapidly and the door began to slide back across. Sonya was forced to jump away as the rock closed yet again, locking her out.

"What the hell?" she demanded.

"Identity verification," Newt said slowly, as though still processing the idea. "I think we all need to scan ourselves in before they'll let us go through."

"As if anybody wants to break into this hellhole," Minho grumbled, but obligingly presented himself to the scanner anyway.

It beeped just as it had for Thomas, repeating the same words as Newt, Gally and Frypan were all cleared to proceed through the door.

Then Harriet stepped up to the scanner.

The lights flashed again, twice in a row, but this time the beep was a single, short burst.

"Identity verified," the computerized voice proclaimed. "Access denied."

"What?" Harriet asked, looking utterly taken aback.

"Try it again," Newt suggested, his brow furrowing in confusion. "Maybe it didn't register you properly."

Harriet tried two, three, four times to no avail – as did Sonya and Felicity. The scanner only beeped once, the emotionless robotic tone announcing over and over again that they had been denied access.

"Maybe it only works for guys?" Minho wondered. "Teresa, give it a try."

Teresa stepped to the front of the group, looking straight into the scanner. It beeped – twice as it had for the other boys – and declared that she had been given access.

She exhaled a shaky breath, feeling something inside her ease at the thought that she would not have to watch Thomas and the others go through without her, would not have to stay behind while the people she loved threw themselves into danger.

"Group A," Thomas said abruptly. "That has to be it. Everyone it permitted access to is from Group A."

A yawning pit of dread opened up in Teresa's chest as she saw the truth of his words. Everyone allowed to enter the doorway had been with her in the Glade, from the very beginning when she'd opened her eyes to a strange new world she didn't know.

Suddenly, everything felt intensely personal, frightening in a way it hadn't been when she'd believed it was just about getting the Immunes back. This wasn't about the Immunes. It wasn't even about the experiment subjects. This was about them, specifically.

This was about the Maze.

A horrifically ironic sort of full circle, this desperate race to get back to the place they'd spent night and day fighting to escape.

"But they're Immunes too," Frypan pointed out, clearly mystified. "What's so special about us that they only want us back?"

"That's what we need to go find out," Teresa heard herself say, feeling strangely as though she were watching some other Teresa speak in some other world.

"And we need to go now," Newt said urgently, glancing around them. The cavern was completely dark, only the bare gleam of silvered water near the opening cutting through the night. "We could still have a long way to go, and we only have until sunrise, if that, before another Immune is killed."

There was a flurry of movement as the Gladers lined up before the rectangular hole in the rock, the Group B girls handing over their weapons and extra supplies. They would wait out the night and make the trek back to the other side of the cavern in the daylight, they decided, pressing both the torches into Thomas and Teresa' hands despite their protests.

"You need it more than I do," Felicity insisted, wrapping Teresa's fingers around the flashlight. "Honestly, it'll just weigh me down. Can you believe I made that crossing for nothing?"

"And now we have to make it again," Sonya groused, pulling off the Launcher strapped across her chest and handing it to Minho.

"Felicity," Teresa said seriously, grasping her friend's hands. "If I don't make it back – "

"Don't," Felicity cut her off. "Don't say it. You can't afford to think like that."

"I'm not." Teresa cleared her throat, struggling to keep her voice calm and even. "But I have to say it. If I don't make it back, will you – will you tell Ana…"

The thought of her sister felt like an arrow to the heart. She had only just found her, found her more than a decade after losing her, and now she was about to lose her again. What message could she possibly pass on that would soothe that kind of wound?

Teresa wished suddenly, desperately, that she had held Ana for a minute longer that morning, ruffled her hair and made one last joke, told her that she loved her instead of charging off to fulfil WICKED's whims. Ana, laughing and carefree, gone off with Jorge to the other end of the Paradise and likely only just starting to wonder where she was, unaware that Teresa might never come home.

She saw a pained look cross Newt's face and knew that he was thinking of Ana too.

"I'll tell her," Felicity promised, squeezing Teresa's hand even though Teresa hadn't even completed her sentence. "But T…I promise you she already knows."

Teresa hoped with all her heart that Felicity was right as she pulled her friend in for a hug, praying to an entity she no longer believed in that Ana knew she loved her, that she would see her sister's face again to tell her that in person.

It had always been this way, she thought dimly as she released Felicity. There had never been time for proper goodbyes, for that one last look, one last whispered I-love-you.

Minho and Gally had disappeared through the doorway, followed by Frypan and then Newt. She watched them all vanish through the opening, barely big enough for them to fit, all of them being forced to duck their heads to avoid bashing them on the stone. Thomas waited for her by the doorway, steely-eyed and already focused on the road ahead, turning to climb in as she approached.

She felt her own mask latch down over her features, wiping away any traces of fear or despair or hopelessness until only iron resolve and burning determination remained. No matter what happened, come morning either she or WICKED would not be there to face the day.

She intended to make sure it was her.

Without looking back, Teresa boosted herself up into the rock and followed her friends into the unknown.

This chapter clocks in at 7194 words, which makes it the longest chapter I have ever written in any story that I have posted to this site. I hope that is some small consolation for the ungodly amount of time you guys had to wait to read this.

I have finally worked out the end to this story, and I'm both delighted and saddened to announce that we are about 5-7 chapters from the end, including an epilogue. I hope you guys have enjoyed the ride here as much as I have, but don't get off just yet, because there are still quite a few loops and drops to come!

I'd love to know your thoughts on this chapter, as well as any questions and issues you'd like to clear up before the story ends! I'm fairly sure I've accounted for most of them, but then I also had like no plan when I started this story so…there are probably like a dozen plot holes in every chapter. Ah, the joys of being a writer.

Once again, thank you all so, so much for still being here. I owe everything to you. I hope you're all staying safe, healthy, and happy (and washing your hands!).

Till next time!