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Boots hammering with every step, Minho pants, eyes wide in fear as he gets closer to the light. He isn't sure what happens first — the humid warmth gushing against his skin, the blinding whiteness that threatens to burn his eyes, or his ankle almost twisting as the ground beneath it shifts.
Sand. For miles, in all directions.
Fear bursts in Minho's chest, cold and sticky and trickling through his blood system, stealing his breath from his lungs far too easily. It's a lot to take in — more than he can physically comprehend — and he finds himself staring over his shoulder at the Maze as his eyes well up, trying to fight back the wind and grains of debris that have started hitting his face, speckling it with dust and adding to all the grime his cheeks and forehead have collected in the last hour.
After glancing back ahead to ensure he is still running in the correct direction, he twists his face backwards and winces up at the wall behind him. No matter how far he runs, it doesn't shrink in size, remaining towered over him. No shadow is cast down upon him, for the sun in the sky is everywhere at once, beating down against his body cruelly. The heat presses on his clothes, his exposed skin, the crown of his head — anywhere it can reach. Minho squints, studying the Maze's exterior wall as his heart pulses inside of him, drumming against his ribs and beating up his throat to the point he believes he is going to throw up.
Concrete touching the sky like how an outstretched hand wishes to reach towards some unknown ruler of the space above. Small but noticeable indents, nooks and crannies, ledges and cuts etched into its surface all with meaning, all with intention. Minho clearly sees stains of rust paired with hairline cracks snaking down the wall, with ivy peeking through and breaking apart the stone further in a reclaiming burst of fruitful colour.
The next sense Minho focuses on is his hearing, as the roaring of blades through stagnant air shatter his ear drums. The whirring sound feels loud enough to split his head open and he winces harder than earlier, looking back at Newt as he nears the threatening, screeching animal made of black metal he is being beckoned hastily towards by armed men in black. Newt doesn't return his gaze, his face screwing up under the brightness of the sun as he jogs along, eyes fixed on Thomas and Thomas alone.
Minho would think that, just by studying the severe intensity of Newt's stare, the world would simply cease to be if Newt let his eyes wander from the Greenie for a mere millisecond. Yet Minho is being piled onto the helicopter before he can get a good look at Thomas and understand Newt's unyielding fixation. Thomas didn't seem to be running in that split second Minho spared him a flick of the eyes. It looked as if he was being forcefully dragged along. Minho isn't surprised.
An arm pushes Minho upwards and he is onboard. Hands coming down onto the boiling, inner floor of the helicopter, he pushes himself upright off the grated metal and shuffles over to give Newt, and then Thomas, more space. He can barely breathe from exhaustion, but fixes his eyes onto the man in the compartment with them, feeling distrust coiled tightly in his bones.
The man wrangles his mask from his face, coughing up sand, and then looks over the group of them pitifully. He has grown out, peppery hair that shifts at his shoulders, and eyes that are wise beyond their years. "You guys alright?" His voice is lighter than Minho had been anticipating, "Don't worry. You're safe now."
"Safe."
A word Minho has heard before. A word Minho has heard before, the very speaker now dead on the cool floor of that control room, bleeding out from Minho's hand. If the Glade wasn't safe, then Minho doesn't believe it that the world outside is any better. Safe isn't real. Safe is letting your guard down too easily. Safe is being naive and never discovering that you have been lied to. Safe is the loss of—
Safe is a lot of things, Minho decides.
Minho especially doesn't believe the man's usage of safe as he looks out of the window, the helicopter rising into the air, and sees the complete devastation of the world around them. And, even with all this fresh scenery in sight that none of them have ever been fortunate enough to see before, Minho's eyes drop back to the Maze in an almost magnetic trance.
Newt leans closer to the window, his breath fogging up a small sphere on it. Everyone mimics him both thoughtlessly and flooded with uncertainty, creeping closer to the thick pane of glass. Thomas on the floor in front of Minho leans over, Winston behind Minho by the wall leans over, and so on. Minho is caught in the tide of their moving bodies, and his chest tightens with dread and not much more. The helicopter climbs higher and higher into the sky, allowing him to truly take in the battlefield he has called his life.
Just like his map, the Maze is a complete circle — perhaps like an all-seeing eye for Wicked, with the hallways as the swirling iris and the Glade as its pupil — but has exterior chambers that Minho never ran on foot inside of. Sure, he dedicated himself to mapping each and every inch of those long, winding passages of the Maze, but the whole puzzle is bigger on the outside. Minho may have never been able to physically reach those bounds he is now seeing, but he still feels disappointment overcome him. The one thing he was proud of, the one thing he granted himself successful with, was running the entire Maze, and now he finds that to be untrue. There are thick blocks of stone as high as office buildings that he had never known of until this very second.
Maybe they are all long-dead control rooms like the one they have just fled. Maybe WCKD intended for them to never see those towers. Nonetheless, a sinking feeling keeps a soft frown plastered on Minho's face, even as his mouth hangs agape in awe.
The Maze stretches for miles. It's impossible to believe that people actually built this monumental structure. If he didn't know better, Minho could believe that the Maze always had been, and always will be, standing here in all its glory. Walls as tall as grand cities, and as long as rivers and train lines… although Minho can't quite recall what those look like. He only knows that they can be outstandingly large in length. Simultaneously, Minho thinks as to how this monster of a structure shouldn't exist at all. It is unnatural in every way and form possible, each gnarled vine of dark-green ivy that strangles the grey not even managing to reclaim it back to nature.
With the sun catching the Maze at just the right angle, Minho lets out a breath, tension in his body unravelling as he takes in the fact that he is actually out of that small, wild and smoking box down there — the Glade. Minho swallows a thick lump in his throat, the precious skin within him scratched and grated completely raw from endless yelling and tears. Can the boys who chose to stay behind and seal their fates in cowardice see them? Are they watching the helicopter soar away with their souls in agony, realising they really have been left behind for good?
Unless the Grievers have gotten to them already.
With the image of Alby in his head, Minho's mind is briefly snatched away from the Maze out of the window before him. Alby was there for everyone, he had to be, but no one was there for him, were they? It makes Minho sick. Furthermore, worse still are the fractured images of Chuck and Gally that pierce his heart. Too much is lost to him. Too much.
Snapping back to the gripping present, Minho mentally notes how the Maze almost looks.. golden. Not yellowish like the endless sands swamping the Maze's sturdy base, but gleaming in sunshine and greedily swallowing each ounce of light with wholehearted pride. The words WCKD Site A fly past them, faded white paint having been partially scorched off by the sun. It is cruel how beautiful everything looks, like a painting captured in time forevermore. Eternal in its rest.
It makes Minho pause and think, however. Dangerous things can be pretty. That's always been the way things go.
On that trail of thought, Minho narrows his eyes onto the intricate-looking chunks of thick machinery that are now glinting beneath the sun in the Maze's exterior. Large, metal cogs, beams of iron, all knitted together into cobwebs. They almost look like the venomous arms of a Griever, impressive in an overly frightening way. Minho stares long and hard at the mechanics, and his hand reaches out instinctively to the air beside him, "Ga—"
But, his fingers grip onto nothing. Not the rough fabric of a burnt orange shirt, not the calloused hand of someone who spends their days working tirelessly. Nothing.
Minho's heart drops into the pit of his stomach and the Maze is suddenly blurry through his reddening eyes. All he can think about it how he would have loved the workings of it. Minho silently curses himself. Hell, his body is still down there beside Chuck's, growing more and more distant and forgotten by the second. How long will it be until the sand from the below desert finally sweeps its way into the Maze and buries them? That's the best funeral they can get now, Minho thinks bitterly.
Something Minho has forgotten about is the man in the vehicle with them, who speaks gruffly, with each word making the helicopter grow colder, "Everything's gonna change."
Minho doesn't hear him. Everyone is focused elsewhere now, whether that is at the ceiling, or their own feet, as they let the words settle. Not Minho. He watches the Maze — no longer significant and plainly abandoned — shrink and shrink until they are finally past it. His prison, his enemy, and worst of all his home.