Chapter Text
The stone wall came out of nowhere.
One second, Minho was hitting his stride, lungs burning in that familiar, rhythmic way he actually kind of liked. The next, his boot found a patch of slick, unseen moss on a turn in Section 4.
Friction vanished. Gravity took over.
He went down hard, shoulder checking the ivy-covered wall before his head cracked against the stone floor.
Crunch.
The world turned white, then grey, then slowly reassembled itself into the dim corridor of the Maze.
Minho groaned, rolling onto his back. He lay there for a beat, staring up at the slice of sky trapped between the concrete heights. The massive stone doors were going to close in twenty minutes. Maybe fifteen.
"Shuck," he whispered. The word vibrated in his skull.
He sat up, wincing. He reached for the back of his head. His fingers came away wet. Red. Not a gusher, but enough to sting.
"Great. Just great."
He scrambled to his feet. The world tilted left, then righted itself. He wasn't dizzy—not really. He was Minho. He didn't get dizzy.
He started to jog. A slow limp at first, then forcing his muscles to remember the mechanics of speed. Left. Right. Straight. Left at the blade. Right at the crack.
As he ran, the adrenaline smoothed out the pain, leaving room for the anxiety of looking like a Greenie. He couldn't walk into the Glade bleeding like a shuck pig and tell them he slipped on moss.
Alby would look at him with those disappointed eyes. Gally would laugh his head off. And Newt... Newt would mother him to death. “You alright, Minho? Need a pillow for your feet?”
No. He needed a story.
Griever, Minho thought, picking up the pace. No, too big. I’d be dead.
Beetle Blade. He grinned, ignoring the throb in his skull. Yeah. I was chasing one of those metal bugs to see where it went. Got too close. It… exploded? No. It ran under my feet.
He could sell that. He’d make it a joke. He’d walk in, swipe the blood off his neck like it was nothing, and say, “You should see the bug. Squashed it flat.”
He rounded the final corner. The door was open. The corridor was long and straight, leading back to the sanctuary.
He checked his mental clock. Five minutes to spare. Cutting it close. He expected to see Newt standing at the threshold, arms crossed, leaning on his bad leg, ready to lecture him about timing.
Minho fixed his face into a smirk. He wiped the sweat from his eyes. He prepared the sass.
"Miss me, you ugly shanks?" he shouted, his voice echoing off the walls as he ran through the Doors. "Hope you saved me some—"
The sentence died in his throat.
Silence.
Not the quiet of the night. This was the heavy, suffocating silence of a grave.
Minho skidded to a stop in the grass. The Doors groaned, beginning their nightly grind to close behind him.
The fire pit was cold. A pile of ash, grey and settled. No smoke. No smell of Frypan’s stew. No clatter of pans.
Minho spun in a circle. His eyes scanned the area, not with emotion, but with the cold calculation of a Runner. Threat assessment. Logistics.
The hammocks were there. He ran to them. They weren't torn. They weren't bloody. They were empty. Not just empty—stripped. No blankets. No personal items.
"Alby!" Minho yelled.
A bird chirped near the Deadheads. That was it.
Minho sprinted to the Homestead. He kicked the door open. "This isn't funny! If this is a banishment joke, I'm gonna break Gally's nose!"
Empty. Dust motes danced in the light of the setting sun.
He ran to the Map Room. His sanctuary. The tubes were gone. The table was bare.
They didn't die. There was no blood. There were no bodies.
The realization hit him harder than the stone wall had.
"They left," he whispered.
He backed out of the Map Room, stumbling into the courtyard. The massive slabs of stone were grinding together, sealing the Glade for the night.
"No," Minho gasped.
He sprinted across the courtyard, his boots tearing up the grass. He ran at the wall, slamming into the sealed Doors, the impact jarring his injured shoulder. He ignored it. He jammed his fingers into the seam where the two massive stones met.
The Glade wasn't a home anymore. It was a box. And he was the only thing inside it.
"No!" he roared.
He clawed at the rock. His fingernails scraped uselessly against the granite, tearing the skin. It wasn't enough.
He reached for his belt and ripped his machete free. He jammed the blade into the crack, putting his entire body weight behind it. He was going to pry it open. He was going to force the mechanism back.
"Why?" Minho screamed, tears of rage blurring his vision. "Let me out!"
Snap.
The metal blade shattered. The steel wasn't strong enough. The stones didn't care.
Minho stared at the broken handle in his hand. He threw it at the wall.
He hammered his fists against the stone until his knuckles split. He kicked it. He threw his body against the immovable object over and over again.
He had been out there, running for them. Mapping for them. And they had found the way out. And they had decided—collectively—that Minho wasn't worth the wait.
“I slipped,” Minho thought, his breath coming in short, jagged gasps.
"Newt!" he screamed. It was a raw, furious sound that ripped his throat.
He reached up to grab his head, expecting the drying blood from the fall.
Minho froze. His fingers pressed against his temples. It was thick. Cold.
The silence of the Glade began to hum and the vibration rattled his teeth and his legs were gone and the green blades of grass weren't swaying they were just a picture and the hum grew louder and it wasn't the wind it was a machine and he was screaming but the name sounded muffled and small and he clawed at his head but his hand hit a leather strap.
Open your eyes, a voice whispered. Not his voice.
Minho blinked.
The Glade vanished.
There was no sky. There was only a blinding white light, inches from his face.
The smell of rain and stew was replaced by the acrid sting of ozone and antiseptic.
Minho gasped and his chest heaved against the buckles and he thrashed with the phantom momentum of the run and his muscles were still trying to find the turn in Section 4.
"Subject A7. Stabilized," a voice said. Clinical. Bored.
Minho turned his head, his neck stiff against the restraints.
A man in a white coat was peeling a sensor off Minho’s temple. The cold gel—the blood from the simulation—dripped down Minho’s ear.
"Where..." Minho croaked, his voice thick with panic and confusion. "Where did they go? Why did they leave?"
The scientist didn't look at him. He was tapping on a tablet. "Nowhere, Subject A7. They were never there."
"Bullshit," Minho spat, though it came out as a wheeze. He strained against the straps, blinking the white spots from his vision.
That's when he saw her. Standing behind the scientist, arms crossed, watching the monitor.
"Teresa?"
The name felt heavy in his mouth. She looked… clean. Lab coat. WCKD badge. Not the girl covered in Scorch dust he remembered.
"Teresa! What the hell is this?" Minho yelled, yanking at his wrist cuffs. "Let me go!"
She didn't flinch. She barely even looked at him. Her eyes were fixed on the data stream on the wall.
"Enzyme yield is below threshold," another scientist muttered, adjusting his glasses. "The abandonment scenario didn't trigger the fight-or-flight spike we need. It's barely a trickle."
Minho looked between them. "Enzymes? What are you talking about? Teresa, look at me!"
Teresa finally shifted her gaze. It wasn't angry. It wasn't sad. It was terrifyingly empty.
"It's for the cure, Minho," she said softly.
"What?"
She turned to the lead scientist. She didn't acknowledge Minho's struggle, or the terror in his eyes. She just nodded at the screen.
"Reset the neural interface," she commanded, her voice flat. "Start the next one."
"No!" Minho roared as the scientist reached for his head again. "Don't you touch me! I will—"
The scientist pressed a button.
Minho’s back arched. The world went white.