Someone shook Hazel awake. Her eyes snapped open to see someone towering over her.
    "Hazel, are you alright?" asked Newt, concern written all over his face.
    "Other than the throbbing pain in my head, I'm completely fine." replied Hazel, wincing as she stood up.
    Hazel placed her hand on her forehead and felt a warm, sticky liquid. It was blood.
    "Where are the others?" asked Hazel, wiping the blood off her hand and onto her pants.

    "They're outside. Let's get ourselves cleaned up first." said Newt as he snaked his arm around Hazel's waist and carried her over to the bed.
    "The first-aid kit is in the top drawer." said Hazel as Newt walked over to the wooden dresser.

****

    "Done." said Newt, throwing the bloody rag onto the ground.
    "Okay, your turn." said Hazel.
    "This might sting a bit." warned Hazel as she lifted the rag up to his head.
    She placed her hand at the back of Newt's head and gently wiped the blood off his temple.
    Hazel then placed a clean towel on Newt's wound."You'll have to hold it there for awhile."

    "Thanks, love." said Newt, smiling as he moved his hand to the towel, keeping it in place.
    Hazel stood up and walked over to the door. "Come on, let's go find the others."
    The Homestead was in chaos. The Gladers ran about, talking all at once. Lights blazed throughout all the rooms. At the corner of her eye, Hazel spotted a blurry figure running down the stairs, headed towards the Maze Doors. It only took her half a second to realise who it was.

    "Newt," exclaimed Hazel, pointing at her brother. "We have to stop Thomas from going back into the Maze again!"
    "You stop him," said Newt. "I have to check on Alby, make sure the shank's alright."
   "Okay, I'll meet you at the Maze Doors!" yelled Hazel, running down the stairs, headed towards her brother.

****

    "Thomas!" shouted Newt as he neared the West Doors. " What the bloody hell are you doing?"
    "Minho followed it out there!" Thomas yelled when Newt had caught up to him, Newt had a small towel pressed against the wound on his head. A patch of blood had already seeped through the white material.

    "Yeah, I saw." said Newt, pulling the towel away to inspect it; he grimaced and put it back over the wound. "Shuck it, that hurts like a mother. Minho must've finally lost it - not to mention Gally. I always knew that shank was crazy."
    "Newt!" exclaimed Hazel, hitting her boyfriend on the chest.
    "What? It's true." stated Newt.
    "I'm going after him." said Thomas, interrupting the couple's conversation.

    "Being a bloody hero again?" asked Newt, his attention back to Thomas.
    Thomas look at Newt sharply, hurt by the older boy's rebuke. "You think I do things to impress you shanks? Please. All I care about is getting out of here."
    "Yeah, well, you're a regular toughie. But right now we've got worse problems."

    "What?" Thomas knew that if he wanted to catch up to Minho he'd have to leave now.
    "Somebody-" he began.
    "There he is!" shouted Thomas, cutting Newt off. Minho had just turned a corner up ahead and was coming straight for them. Thomas cupped his hands over his mouth. "What were you doing, idiot?"

    Hazel rolled her eyes, annoyed at the boys.
    Minho waited until he made it past the Doors, then bent over, hands on his knees, and sucked in a few deep breaths before answering. "I just... Wanted to... Make sure..."
    "Make sure of what?" asked Newt. "Lotta good you'd be if you were taken with Gally."
    Now that got Hazel's attention.
    "What?!" she cried out.

    "I'll tell you about it later." said Thomas, dismissing the subject.
    "No, you'll tell about it now."
    Minho straightened up and put his hands on his hips, still breathing heavily. "Slim it, guys! I just wanted to see if they went towards the Cliff. Through the Griever hole."
    "And?" asked Thomas.
    Minho wiped sweat from his forehead. "Bingo."
    "I can't believe it," said Newt, almost whispering. "What a night."

    "What were you about to tell me?" asked Thomas. "You said we had worse-"
    "Yeah." Newt pointed his thumb over his shoulder. "You can see the buggin' smoke."
    Hazel and Thomas looked in that direction. The heavy metal door of the Map Room was ajar, wispy trail of black smoke drifting out and into the grey sky.

    "Somebody burned the map trunks." said Newt.
    "How many trunks were burnt?" asked Hazel.

    "Every last one of 'em."

****

    "Teresa?" asked Thomas.
    Teresa's face appeared from behind the wooden bars, rubbing her eyes. "Was anyone killed?" she ask, somewhat groggy.
    "Were you asleep?" asked Thomas. He was relieved to see that see was okay, felt himself relax.
    "I was," said Teresa. "Until I heard something shred the Homestead to bits. What happened?"

    Thomas shook his head in disbelief. "I don't know how you managed to sleep with the sound of those Grievers out here."
    "You try comein' out of a coma sometime. See how you do."
    Now answer my question, she said inside his head.
    Thomas blinked momentary, surprised by her voice in his head since she hadn't done it in awhile. "Cut that junk out."

    "Just tell me what happened."
Thomas sighed. "You don't know Gally-" he began.
    "Actually I kinda do." interrupted Teresa.
    "You do? How?" asked Thomas.
    Don't tell me you knew Gally before this, hoped Thomas.
    "You know Hazel was the Med Jack who took care of me while I was in a coma, right?" asked Teresa.
    "Yeah," replied Thomas. "That's what she does."

    Teresa nodded. "While I was in a coma I could hear everything and everyone around me, but I couldn't respond to any of it."

    "Hazel would always talk to me, like she knew that I could hear her."
Thomas nodded and gestured for her to continue.
    "Hazel used to talk about her friends and how she missed Gally, that's about it."
    "Anyway," said Thomas. "Gally was a psycho kid who ran away. He showed up, jumped on a Griever and they all took off into the Maze. It was really weird."
    "Which is saying a lot." added Teresa.

    "Yeah." she looked behind him, hoping to see Alby somewhere. Surely he'd let Teresa out now. The Gladers were scattered all around the complex, but there was no sign of their leader. He turned back to face Teresa. "I don't get it. Why would the Grievers just leave after getting Gally? He said something about killing us one a night until we were all dead - he said it at least twice."

    Teresa put her hands through the bars, and rested her forearms against the concrete sill. "Just one a night? Why?"
    "I don't know. He also said it had something to do with... Trials. Or variables. Somethin' like that." Thomas had the same strange urge that he had the night before - to reach out and take one of her hands. But he stopped himself, though.

    "Tom, I was thinking about what you told me I said. That the Maze is a code. Being holed up in here gives me a lot of time to think."
    "What do you think it mean?" asked Thomas, trying to block out the shouts of the other Gladers.
    "Well, the walls move everyday, right?"
    "Yeah." he could really tell that she was on to something.
    "And Minho says that he thinks there's a pattern right?"

    "Right." Gears were starting to shift into place inside Thomas's head as well.
    "They always compare each section to the day before, and the day before that, day by day, each Runner just analysing their own Section. What if they were supposed to compare the Maps to other sections..." he trailed off.

    Teresa seemed to ignore him, doing her own theorising. "The first thing the word code makes to me think of is letters. Letters in the alphabet. Maybe the Maze is trying to spell something."
    Everything came so quickly in Thomas's mind that he head an audible click, as if the pieces were all coming into place. "You're right - you're right! The Runners have been looking at it wrong this whole time! They've been analysing it the wrong way!"

    Teresa gripped the bars now, her knuckles white. "What are you talking about?"
    Thomas grabbed the two bars outside of where she held on to, close enough to smell her - a surprisingly pleasant smell of sweat and flowers. "Minho said that the patterns repeat themselves, only they can't figure out what it means. But they've already studied them section by section, comparing one day to the next. What of each day is a separate piece of the code and they're supposed to use all eight sections together somehow?"

    "Do you think that maybe each day is trying to reveal a word?" asked Teresa. "With the wall movements?"
    Thomas nodded. "Something like that. They've been studying it like a Map, not like a picture or something. We've gotta-" then he stopped, remembering what he'd just been told by Newt.
    Teresa's eyes flared with worry. "What's wrong?"

    "Oh no no no no..." Thomas let go of the bars and stumbled back as realisation hit him. He turned to the Map Room. The smoke had lessened but it still wafted out the door, covering the entire area.
    "What's wrong?" Teresa repeated. She couldn't see the Map Room from the angle she was in.
    "I don't think it matters anymore..."
    "What?" she demanded.
    "Someone burned all the Maps. If there was a code, It's gone."

-

Hey guys, sorry I took so long to post this chapter. I was on holiday, and I forgot to bring my TMR book :(

But I'm back now. Yay!

-

Vote, comment, rate, do whatever you want <3 xx

-