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Hazel's P.O.V

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    "Guys!" Chuck shouts, his voice echoing down the hallway. "Hey, he moved!"
   I jump off the table, sprinting up the stairs. I'm out of breath by the time I reach the room that we'd placed Thomas in. My eyes dart from Nathan, who's standing by the doorway to Chuck, who's standing next to my brother.
   "Thomas," I call out, walking towards them. "Thomas, it's me. Hazel, your sister. Can you hear me?"
   My brother lets out a soft grunt, but doesn't open his eyes.

    I watch as Chuck reaches his hand out. "Hey, Thomas, it's me, Chuck. Are you okay? Please don't die on me, dude."
   My body tenses at the mention of death but Nathan gently squeezes my hand, causing me to relax. I let out a sigh of relief as Thomas's eyes slowly flutters open. Groaning, my brother sits up on the bed. He swings his legs over the edge of the cot, holding his head in his hands.
   "You're awake!" Chuck states, his smile widening.

    My brother winces at the sound of Chuck's voice, cupping his hands over his ears. "Do you have to be so loud, Chuck? I don't feel so good."
   "Right, sorry," Chuck apologizes sheepishly. "You're just lucky I'm not showering you with kisses."
   I finally speak up. "And you're lucky that I haven't punched you yet."
   Thomas holds up his hand. "Please don't do that, both of you."
   He then inches towards the wall and leans against it, stretching his legs out. "How long was I out?"

    "Three days," Chuck answers for us.
   "We put you in the slammer at night to keep you safe and brought you back here during the day so that Hazel and I could keep an eye on you," Nathan tells him.
   "Three bloody days," I say. "I stood here for three bloody days waiting for you to wake up so I could tell you how stupid you were for doing what you did that night."
   "Well, that can wait for later," Thomas says. "Did the Grievers come?"

    "Yeah," I say. "They got Zart and a couple others one a night."
    "Minho and the other Runners have searched the Maze for any more clues that we might've missed or some use for that code that we discovered," Nathan adds.
    "That shuckface Newt kept me under supervision," I grumble. "He told all the Runners to not let me run in the maze."
    "Did they find anything?" Thomas asks.

    Chuck shakes his head. "No, nothing. But why do you think that the Grievers are only taking one poor shank at a time? Like, why not take a bunch of us?"
    But Chuck's question falls on death ears as Thomas looks up at us with a deadly serious expression. "Get Newt and Alby."
    I furrow my eyebrows.
    "Tell them we need to have a Gathering," he continues. "As soon as possible."
    "Serious?"

    Thomas sighs, tired. "Chuck, I've just gone through the shucking changing. Do you think I'm being serious?"
    Chuck then runs out of the room without a word, his cries for the Glade leaders getting softer as he get further away. Nathan gives me a look before running after Chuck in search for either Newt or Alby. I turn my head back to face Thomas, who's now resting his head against the wall.
    Teresa, he calls out, trying to reach her.

    Her response wasn't immediate, but then her voice appeared in our minds as loud as clear as if she was sitting next to us.
    That was really stupid, Tom. Really, really stupid.
    I had to do it, he answers. I had to know why they took my memories.
    Couldn't you at least have told us that you were going to do that? I ask. We could've found a safer way to get you stung instead of stand by helpless and afraid as you participated in a suicide mission.

    I didn't mean to scare you guys, you know that, right? He asks us.
    I look away, not wanting to meet his gaze.
    The two of us pretty much hated you for the next few days, Teresa tells him. Hazel especially. She kept saying that she'd kill you if you died.
    You hated me?
    That's my special way of saying that I'd kill you if you died, Teresa answers.
    Well, thanks? I guess.
    So how much do you remember? I ask, my back facing my brother. 'Cause it'd better not be all for nothing.

    I remember enough, he replies.
    The rest of their conversation is silent. Like- Like they somehow managed to block me out from hearing it. I furrow my eyebrows. What are the two of you hiding? I press my forefinger and middle finger to my temple, trying to listen in on their conversation.
    "Hazel," Thomas says out loud, scaring me.
    I shake my head, regaining my composure. "What?" I snap, not turning around to face him.

    "Please. Please look at me," he begs.
    "I can't," I say. "I'm still mad at you."
    I sigh, rubbing my sides.
    "Goddamnit. What the bloody hell where you even thinking?" I ask him, turning around to face him. "You could've died. You can't keep risking your life like that, Thomas. I just lost Gally, I can't lose you, too."
    Thomas gestures for me to sit next to him, and I oblige. He then engulfs me in a hug. I close my eyes as I lay against his chest.

    "I didn't mean to scare you like that, Hazel," he tells me. "I just needed answers."
    "What if everything didn't go how you planned?" I ask. "What if you died?"
    Thomas shakes his head. "I'd never leave you. I made a promise to mother that I'd keep you safe, to take care of you, and I don't plan on breaking that promise anytime soon."
    "You remember our mother?" I ask.
    He nods. "What about you?"
    "Just a little bit," I say. "I recalled some memories of her when I went through the changing."

    I begin to ask another question but stop when Newt enters the room. The bed sinks as Newt sits down beside us. "Tommy. You- You barely look sick."
    Thomas nods, and I feel his chest vibrate as he talks. "I feel a bit dizzy, but other than that I'm pretty much fine."
    Newt shakes his head, his face a mixture of anger and awe. "Tommy, what you did the bravest and stupidest thing I've ever seen another Glader do." He pauses, shaking his head again.

    "And it seems like that's all you ever do. I know why you did it. Did it work? Did you get your memories back?"
    "We need to have a Gathering," Thomas says, shifting his body to get more comfortable. "Like now. Before I start forgetting things."
    "Yeah." Newt nods. "Chuck told me. But why? What did you figure out?"
    "It's a test, Newt," Thomas says. "The whole thing's a huge test."
    Newt nods understandingly. "Like an experiment."

    I feel Thomas's body shake as he shakes his head. "No, you don't get it. They're weeding us out. They're throwing us these variables, getting rid of the weaker ones. They're testing our ability to fight and our will to survive. Sending Teresa, sending the Grievers to take the Gladers one a night, all down to the last variable leading up to the last move in our part... The final test. To escape."
    "What do you mean?" Newt asks, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion. "Do you know a way out?"
    My brother's response is swift. "Yeah. Now call the Gathering."

****

    It took them about an hour to get everyone to show up for the Gathering. Thomas sat in a chair in front of the Keepers, just like he did a week or two before. They hadn't let Teresa and I into the room which pissed Thomas off just as much as it did to us. But thankfully, after a few weeks of being here, I managed to find a crack in the room where Teresa and I could listen in on their conversation whilst not being seen. My eyes dart to Alby, was seated next to Newt, in the middle of the semicircle of chairs.

    All the seats were occupied except two -a painful reminder that Zart and Gally had been taken by the Grievers.
    "All right, Greenie," Alby spoke up. "Forget all the beat-around-the-bush klunk. Start talking."
    And that Thomas did. "It's a very long story," he began, clearing his throat. "We don't have enough time for me to go through all of it, so here's the gist of it. When I went through the Changing, I saw flashes of images -hundreds of them- too many to remember all of them."

    He pauses, gathering his thoughts. "But I remember enough. The Creators are testing us. The Maze was never meant to be solved. It's all a trial. They want survivors or something."
    "What?" Newt asks.
    My thoughts exactly.

    "Let me start all over again," Thomas says, rubbing his eyes. "Every single one of us was taken from our parents when we were just children. I don't really remember how or why but I think something terrible happened that changed the world completely."

    "I don't know what," he continues. "So the Creators took us from our families and somehow justified their actions. Somehow they figured that we had above-average intelligence, which was why they chose us specifically. I can't remember much about my family other than I was taken from them when I was very young. But after we were taken, we spent the next few years studying in special schools, living somewhat normal lives until they had enough finances to build the Maze. All of us names are just stupid nicknames that they made up -Like Alby for Albert Einstein, Newt for Isaac Newton, and so on."

    "So our names aren't even our real ones?" Alby asks.
    Thomas nods. "All far as I can tell. We'll probably never know our real names."
   "What are you saying?" Frypan asks. "That we're freakin' orphans raised by scientists?"
   "Yes," Thomas replies.
   Well, this just got a lot more depressing.
   "Supposedly we're all really smart and they've been studying us," Thomas continues.

    "Seeing who'd give up easily and who wouldn't. Seeing who has the will to survive the most. Which explains why we have so many beetle blades runnin' around the Glade spying on us. Plus, some of us have... things altered in our shucking brains," Thomas finishes.
   Oh, shuck.
   "I believe this klunk as much as I believe Frypan's food is good for you," Winston grumbles under his breath, looking both exhausted and indifferent.

   "Why would I make all this up?" Thomas snaps, annoyed.
   I glare at the Keeper of the Slicers.
   He risked his shucking life to get stung.
   "Better yet, why don't you give an explaination of all of this?" Thomas demands.
    Alby raises his hand for silence. "Ignore him, just keep talkin'. Everything you just said makes sense except I don't get why not of us remembered all that stuff."

    "I've been through the Changing,  but everything I saw was..." Alby pauses, as if he said something he shouldn't have. "None of it made sense to me and I didn't learn nothin'."
   "I'll tell you guys in a minute why I think that I might've learn more than the others."
   Thomas pauses hesitantly. "So should I keep going or not?"
    "Talk," Newt orders him.
   Thomas took a deep breath as if preparing himself for a long speech.

    "Okay, so somehow they managed to wipe our memories -not just our childhood but all the stuff leading up to when they placed us in the Maze. They put us in the Box and sent up a bunch of us to start then once a month over the last two years."
   "But why?" Newt asks. "What's the bloody point of all of this?"
    "I'm getting there," Thomas says. "Like I said earlier, they wanted to test us, see how we'd react to what they called Variables, and to a problem with no solution."

    "They wanted to see how we'd do if we were throw into this situation. They provided us with all this stuff to survive and to make us think that there was a solution." He pauses, collecting his thoughts. "What I'm saying is that is no solution."
   An uproar soon broke out, questions were asked and some of the Keepers started panicking.

    I shift my body closer to the hole just as Thomas held up his hands. "See? Your reactions just prove my point. Most people would've just given up by now. but i think we're different. We can't accept that the problem can't be solved, that's why we keep on searching for a way out." His voice slowly rises up to the point that he's shouting. "Whatever the reason is, it makes me sick! All this -the Grievers, the walls moving, the goddamn cliff- all for a stupid test."

    "They've been manipulating us for many years, throwing all these crazy things at us to see how we'll respond to it. To see if we'll start turning on one another. In the end, all they want is survivors."
   Frypan stood up. "And killing people? That's just the nice little part of their plan?"
    "Yes, Frypan," Thomas replies. "Killing people. The only reason why the Grievers are taking us one by one is so we don't all die before it send the way they want it to. Survival of the fittest is what they want. Only the best of us will be allowed to live."

    I flinch at the sound of a chair being kicked. "Well, then you better start talking about this escape you found out," Frypan exclaims.
   "He will," Newt assures him, his tone soft. "Just shut up and listen."
   Minho, who was silent for the most of the Gathering, cleared his throat. "Something tells me that we're not gonna like what we're about to hear."
   "Probably not." My brother says in agreement. The uncertainty in his voice scared me. As if he was waiting for them to stand up and start attacking him.

    "The Creators what the best of us for whatever it is they have planned But we have to earn it." The whole room went silent as they listened to my brother talking. "The code."
   "The code?" Frypan repeated, his voice lighting up. "What about it?"
   The tension in the room was so thick that you could cut it with a knife.
   "It was hidden in the wall movements in the Maze for a reason," Thomas states. "I should know- I was there when the Creators did it."

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I'm so sorry for not updating. I totally forgot where I had left off and was too busy working on my other book, Checkmate. I'll try to update the next chapter by Monday but no promises. That's all for this A/N, bye guys.

~ Alice xx

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