Day Seven Hundred and Thirty Five

Ada didn't know who opened the door. All she knew was that one moment the world was dark, so black that it pressed against her eyes painfully, and the next light came creeping in, illuminating the horrified faces around her.

She glanced around at the group, taking stock of who was alive and who wasn't. Winston, Thomas, and Frypan were stood next to each other, all of them trembling and covered in slime. It clung to their shirts, their hands, their faces. Each of their expressions was painted with sheer disbelief. Teresa and Chuck were beside Minho and Jack, staring wide-eyed at the opening to their left, hair messy and eyes haunted, and Newt stood beside her, arm wrapped tightly around her shoulders.

Nine. Out of the fifteen who had left the glade, out of the twenty four that had survived the attack on the glade, out of the sixty people who had occupied the space between the maze walls. Only nine of them had survived.

Ada slumped back against the wall, breath leaving her along with the strain and panic. Her entire body was throbbing with pain, blood running from wounds she wasn't even aware of anymore. Her side ached painfully with every breath, stabbing pains coursing through her chest and shoulder, wrapping her abdomen in bands of fire. Her clothes clung to her with dried blood, sticking painfully to gashes and scrapes she could feel stinging in the sudden burst of cool air.

"Ada," Her name was a breathy exhale on Newt's lips, and she blinked through blurry eyes at him as he took a step towards her, his leg almost buckling beneath him. "Ada, it's okay, it's okay." His hands landed on her arms, sliding up to her face. He clung to her like he was terrified she would be ripped away from him, his fingers unrelenting as they smoothed over her cheeks. "Oh, god."

He clumsily pressed his lips to her forehead, her cheeks, her nose, finally landing on her lips, exhaling against them in relief. Ada's hands moved of their own accord, circling his wrists, his pulse thrumming madly beneath the pads of her fingers. She let the rhythm of it calm her, shoulders sagging with sheer exhaustion. The lack of sleep and adrenaline loss had her dizzy as she closed her eyes tight.

"You're okay." He nodded, forehead pressed against hers, sweat-dampened hair brushing her forehead. "You're okay, darlin'."

She let herself revel in his warmth, in his touch, just relieved that they were both still breathing, still there together. She had been so sure that they weren't going to make it, that they were going to die out there. She remembered what she had told him, the whispered assurances of a better life, a better future, and she couldn't help the tear that ran down her cheek. They had made it a reality.

"We did it." Minho said from behind them, his voice breathless. "We made it out. Holy fuck, we made it out."

"Not quite yet," Thomas said quietly, nodding his head at the door to the side. "Where do you suppose this goes?"

"Don't care," Frypan shook his head, taking slow steps towards the exit. "It's not the glade, and that's good enough for me."

The others went out first, and when Ada went to stand back up again the world tilted uneasily around her. "Woah," Newt's hands clamped down on her waist, rubbing soothing circles on her hips. His eyes were swimming with concern when he looked down at her, brows furrowed, the dark circles under his eyes stark against his pale skin. A small cut, still red and angry, broke the skin under his left eye. "Easy, love, take it slow."

"I'm okay," she nodded, trying to stave off the desperate need to lie down. "I'm okay."

"You sure?" Minho asked, his hand coming to rest on her shoulder. "You don't look so good, Ads."

"I'm fine." She took a step forward, Newt's hands still outstretched worriedly. "Come on, let's see where this goes."

She stepped out into yet another long corridor, one that looked eerily similar to the one Ennis had been killed in all those months ago. This one, however, was in considerably better condition. The walls were pale grey, exposed pipes running along the stone. Painted yellow lines ran the length of the floor at the base of the walls, vanishing into the black. The door they had come out of was in the middle of the passageway, and even as the overhead lights blinked on one by one the ends of the hallway were swathed in shadows.

"Which way?" Teresa asked, receiving nothing but unsure silence as a response.

"I guess, this way?" Thomas shrugged after a while, gesturing tiredly to their right. Both routes were identical, so all they could do was walk and pray. They set off hesitantly, following the blinking lights.

Unease unfurled in her gut, replacing the relief that had blossomed there. Her dagger was gone, lost to the fight, and the emptiness of her hand felt strange and unpleasant. She reached across, linking her pinkie finger with Newt's as they walked, trying to quell the strange feeling. His smile was strained, not quite enough to reveal his dimples.

Ada wasn't sure how long they walked. It could have been minutes or hours, the grey blurring together until she was almost certain she had died and was trapped in some sort of purgatory. That sense of uncertainty never went away, hanging in the air like a thick fog.

They slowed at last as a door came into view, deep blue and unassuming, coated in rust. Orange numbers were stamped onto the front, 568-A4, but she had no idea what it possibly meant. A green light blinked steadily next to a glowing Exit sign.

"You've gotta be fucking kidding me." Ada scoffed.

"Seriously?" Frypan asked.

Thomas reached for it first, trembling fingers reaching for the rust covered handle. The door swung open, the faint sound of an alarm splitting through the air. Ada's stomach dropped when the other side came into view. "Oh god..." Her hand lifted to cover her mouth.

It looked to be some sort of lab, but the bodies littering the ground and the blood splashed against the walls made it appear more like a scene out of a nightmare. The overhead lights were smashed, glass glinting in violent shards on the dark tiled ground. Ada moved forward numbly, stepping into the chaos, eyes catching on the glass wall to her right.

Two bodies lay on metal gurneys, motionless and covered in a white sheet, only their feet exposed. They could have been sleeping were it not for the crimson stain on their chest, still wet, blooming on the white like a rose in the snow. A small table beside them held a scalpel and two syringes, and she looked away quickly, nausea rising in her throat. She watched Newt steer Minho away by the arm, both of them pale and uneasy.

There was a body at her feet. Face down, blood soaked, his arm still outstretched towards the gun a few feet away. Minho kicked the weapon away, linking his fingers with Ada's, tugging her further down the hallway into the open space at the end.

"What happened here?" Winston asked, voicing her thoughts. She stared around at the displays, the screens on the walls, the bullet holes piercing them.

"Some sort of gunfight, maybe?" Ada suggested, although she couldn't image the bodies in the white lab coats wielding any weapons other than their syringes.

The raised platform before her looked like some sort of control panel, the black desk chairs on either side ripped and tipped over. The walls of the dias were made up of some sort of hologram, displays of vitals and brain patterns she didn't understand glowing pale blue and illuminating the otherwise dark room. They spun and moved, lines of text and numbers appearing and disappearing, and Ada watched them with wide eyes, heart in her throat.

More bodies were strewn across the ground, stiff and lifeless, eyes glassy. Looking at them and the blood slicking their clothes had her feeling faint again, so she squeezed Minho's hand and stepped back towards the wall, steadying herself against a desk, eyes scanning the catastrophe before her.

There were screens everywhere, and sparks poured down from the shattered overhead fixtures, showering the scene with dazzling dots of orange and red.

The screen behind her lit up, and Ada turned her head to face the monitors. One of them was shattered, nothing more than broken glass and lost data, but the rest were whirring with activity. Newt came to stand beside her, eyes scanning the data displayed with wide eyes. "Holy shit."

There were cameras. So many cameras, all of them aimed at the glade. There was the deadheads, the burnt trees, the graveyard. The remnants of the Homestead, the watchtower, the council hall and the kitchens. Their entire lives, reduced to nothing more than images on a screen. Figures moved like ants, slow and unsure, and her eyes tracked the gladers they had left behind, trying to make out their faces. She couldn't see them from that angle, couldn't recognise them, but she couldn't stop herself from searching for one last glimpse of Gally.

She couldn't find him.

The screens beside it showed a diagram of a metallic lizard, a beetle blade, and a map of the human brain, labelled with statistics and other numbers she couldn't make out. Why it was there, she had no idea, but that sick feeling was back. Were they being studied? Dissected like animals? Even as she glanced around the lab, she didn't have the slightest idea of what the point of it all was.

"So they were watching us," Newt said bitterly, staring at the screens in disgust. "This whole time." Goosebumps rose up on Ada's arms along with the disgust at the complete invasion of privacy. She had known logically that they had to have been observed, but to have been so closely scrutinised from every angle? It was barbaric, and disgusting, and she was glad that the Creators were dead or she would have gutted them herself.

Something on the far monitor caught her eye, a list of names in white against a dark background. She took a hesitant step forward, eyes flitting across the screen. She inhaled sharply when she realised exactly what it was she was looking at. The familiar names hurt more than any of the wounds plaguing her body.

"Is that what I think it is?" Newt asked, and all she could do was nod numbly. It was a list of every single person who had come up in the box, in their order of arrival, starting with Alby. She stared at the letters that made up George's name, Luke's and Carson's, Avin's below it. There was just one problem.

Ada scanned the entire list, right down to Teresa's name at the bottom, and her heart stopped.

"I'm not on here." She said at last.

Newt's head snapped up, eyes scanning the list, his lips parting in disbelief. "That's not possible." He shook his head. He lifted his fingers to the first section. "You should be right here. I don't understand."

"Thomas said I wasn't supposed to be in the glade." Ada said quietly, not quite sure what to make of it. "That someone put my name on the list when it wasn't meant to be there. Who would do that? Why would someone do that to me?"

Newt clenched his jaw, eyes hard as he looked back at the screens. "I have no idea."

She supposed it didn't matter. She couldn't change the fact that she had lived those years, had survived the maze even if she was never supposed to. But there was something strange about it that she couldn't quite figure out, and she scanned the list again. It was her fifth time reading it before she realised something. "Newt..."

"Yeah?"

"Look," she pointed at the first five names, the first five exactly where they were supposed to be. The sixth one, however, was wrong. "Your name's there."

"Yeah," Newt nodded, brow furrowed, "what about it?"

"It shouldn't be there. You didn't come up until the third month, why is your name at the front? It's not with those who came up in month three, it's with the first group." She looked up at him with a frown. "Exactly where mine is supposed to be."

Newt's entire body went stiff, eyes narrowing. "Someone swapped our names out." He ran his fingers over his lips, the digits catching on the skin. "You weren't supposed to go up first. I was."

"Why would they send you up later?"

Newt shrugged helplessly, looking utterly lost. "I have no idea, Ads." She hated the frustration she saw in his eyes, and slid her hand up to his shoulder, squeezing gently. He seemed to relax slightly under her touch, hand reaching up to squeeze her fingers. His eyes were softer when he looked down at her, full of barely restrained relief and affection.

A loud beep cut through the quiet, and a large hologram in the centre of the dias whirred to life. Ada turned to look at it, hand reaching for her missing dagger on impulse, fingers grasping at air. There was a woman on the screen, and there was something so distinctly familiar about her that it had the hair on Ada's arms lifting in shock.

She remembered a flash of white, red lipstick on harsh lips, blonde hair slicked back into a neat bun, an image from a dream she couldn't quite recall. She knew somehow, a distant memory trying to claw its way to the surface, that this was the same woman.

She stared out at them from the screen, her lab coat replaced with a professional white dress and pristine coat, every bit the opposite to their bloodied and filthy clothing. "Hello," she spoke, her voice strange, robotic almost, as she smiled down at them, her lips a smear of red against pale skin. "My name is Dr. Ava Paige. I'm Director of Operation in the World In Catastrophe Killzone Experiment Department."

Ada took a step forwards, eyebrows raised, instantly making the connection in her head. W.I.C.K.E.D. And this woman was the head of it all.

"If you're watching this, it means that you have successfully completed The Maze Trials. I wish I could be there in person to congratulate you, but circumstances seem to have prevented it." Figures moved around in the background, their lab coats the only thing giving away who they might be, and Ada watched in astonishment as they worked at the very computers she had just been standing at, sat in the very chairs that lay destroyed at her feet.

"Maze trials?" Minho echoed incredulously, coming to stand at her side. The others moved too, until all nine of them stood in front of the screen, staring up at a projection of the woman who had ruined their lives.

"I'm sure by now you must all be very confused, angry. Frightened." Ada raised an unimpressed eyebrow at her words. Frightened was putting it mildly, and confused didn't even begin to cover the sheer bewilderment she was feeling. "I can only assure you that everything that's happened to you, everything we've done to you, it was all done for a reason."

Someone's hand reached for hers, and she glanced up to see Minho staring at the screen with cold eyes, his grip on her so tight it was almost painful. She squeezed his fingers once, a silent reassurance.

"You won't remember, but the sun has scorched our world. Billions of lives lost to fire, famine. Suffering on a global scale. The fallout was unimaginable. What came after was worse."

The image on the screen changed, and Ava Paige vanished, replaced instead with the image of a dying sun sinking over the water. Everything was dyed a dazzling haze of red and gold, and the sight would have taken Ada's breath away if it weren't for the horror that followed. The streets filled with bodies, burnt to a crisp and half decayed, fire swarming buildings, smoke filling the air in heavy fumes until streets were black with it.

Chuck made a strange noise of horror, and Ada reached out to put her free hand on his shoulder, drawing him back and closer to her. His brown eyes were wide with terror and disbelief, and when she glanced around at the others she saw that they were the same.

"We called it The Flare." She was back on the screen, face drawn tight with sorrow. "A deadly virus that attacks the brain. It is violent, unpredictable... incurable." There were dizzying flashes of bodies wrought with black veins, thrashing on tables, so eerily familiar it had Ada's heart lurching. One look at Newt's face told her that he recognised it too. "Or so we thought. In time, a new generation emerged that could survive the virus. Suddenly, there was reason to hope for a cure. But finding it would not be easy. The young would have to be tested, even sacrificed, inside harsh environments where their brains could be studied."

"We were right," Ada said shakily. George, Alby, Nick, they were right.

"All in an effort to understand what makes them different." The doctor nodded gravely. There was an eager glint in her eye that made Ada shift in discomfort. Something was wrong with the scientists behind her. They were moving frantically, all panic and disorder, yet Ava Paige didn't react. Her eyes remained fixed on them, dark and unrelenting. "What makes you different. You may not realise it, but you're very important. Unfortunately, your trials have only just begun. As you'll no doubt soon discover, not everyone agrees with our methods."

They were being shot at. Bullets flew at random, knocking men and women in lab coats off their feet, blood spraying in wide arcs against the walls and floor. Ada stood, horrified, watching the screen with her heart in her throat. Her eyes caught on the chairs, on the bodies closest to her. She could recognise them now, knew what they were like in their final moments of life. It felt wrong, somehow, to peer into this snapshot in time and the tragedy that came with it.

"Progress is slow, people are scared. It may be too late for us. For me." The window behind her shattered with bullets, yet the doctor didn't so much as flinch. Tired acceptance was wrought into every inch of her body. "But not for you. The outside world awaits." Ada gasped in horror as Ava Paige pulled out a gun, a small silver thing that she pressed to her head, eyes haunted and blank. "Remember... WICKED is good."

Ada turned away before she pulled the trigger, not willing to watch another person die, and her eyes locked with Thomas. There was so much horror and disbelief on his face that she knew mirrored her own, and all they could do was stare at each other silently.

Ada wasn't quite sure what she expected life to be like when she was free of the maze, but a world wrought with famine, fire, and disease? It was wrong, like some sort of cruel trick.

"Oh god..." Thomas' voice was quiet, but it was enough to catch the attention of the others, and she followed his gaze to where he was staring somewhere behind her. There was a smaller room attached to the one that they were in, the glass wall shattered by bullets, barely standing anymore.

A woman lay on the ground, chair tipped over beside her, dressed in familiar white. Ada couldn't see her face, and she was glad for it.

The silence was broken by the sound of an alarm, shrill and piercing, right as a door to their right itched open, hinges spinning. Darkness lay beyond, and she knew without a shred of doubt that this was it. Two years of searching, of loss, of pain and torture, for this.

"Is it over?" Chuck asked hopefully, staring at the door as if all his dreams lay on the other side.

"She said we were important." Newt said, that adorable crease back between his eyebrows again. "Well, what are we supposed to do now?"

"I have no idea." Ada said quietly after a moment.

Thomas exhaled heavily and took an eager step towards the door. "Let's get out of here."

"No." The familiar voice was a bucket of cold water thrown over her, and Ada could have sworn that her heart stopped in her chest. She turned in disbelief to stare at the figure behind them, not willing to believe it, but hoping beyond measure that she wasn't hallucinating.

"Gally." A slow smile broke out over Ada's face when she saw him standing there, silhouetted by the shattered monitors and raining sparks. She took an eager step towards him, relief swamping her. "You came!"

Newt's hand caught her arm, slowly tugging her to a stop. He took a step forwards to come into line with her, gently pulling her closer to his side. She expected to see him smiling when she looked up at him, to see relief at the sight of one of their closest friends joining them at last, but there was nothing but confused suspicion.

"Newt?" She asked, but he didn't look down at her, wrapping an arm around her waist protectively as he simply shook his head.

"Gally?" Thomas asked in disbelief, moving forward to stand with them. The others followed, until their bodies formed a barricade between Gally and the door. Minho silently stepped up to Ada's other side, arms crossed.

"Don't." Teresa stopped Thomas with a hand to the chest. "He's been stung."

Ada looked over at Gally as dread rose in her stomach, taking in the tense set of his shoulders and the blind fury on his face. His eyes were wet with tears – they streamed freely down his face, cutting through the dirt and grime. His posture screamed defensive, muscles bunched, but it was the trailing ends of the black veins that she could see writhing beneath his skin that had Ada's heart skidding to a stop inside her chest.

"No..." The word was a cracked whisper on her lips.

Gally dropped something, the sound of it thudding to the floor echoing in the cavernous space, and Ada caught a glimpse of the round key before it rolled under a nearby desk. They must have dropped it at the doors, lost it somewhere in the attack after the doors had opened. "We can't leave." His hand trembled at his side, and Ada lowered her eyes when she spotted something held tightly in his grip. A gun.

Thomas seemed to have noticed the same thing, his breath catching in his throat. "We did." he held his hands up in surrender, each movement slow and tentative. "Gally, we're out. We're free."

"Free?" Gally laughed, but the sound lacked any humour. It was viscous, and cold, and as he flung his arm out towards the door any semblance of hope Ada was feeling withered and died. "You think we're free out there?" He let out a sob, deep and guttural, and the sound twisted something deep inside her chest. "No. There's no escape from this place."

Gally raised the gun, aiming it straight at Thomas.

"Don't," Ada was begging before she could stop herself, "Gally, don't." Newt's grip on her tightened, pulling her back until she was flush against his side, squeezing her hip in warning.

"Gally, listen to me," Thomas said, his voice low as if he were speaking to a wild animal about to pounce. "You're not thinking straight. You're not. We can help you, okay? Just put down the gun."

Minho shifted at her side, the movement so slight she barely noticed it. She went to turn to face him, but Newt squeezed her hip again, silently telling her not to. She listened, keeping her panicked gaze fixed on the boy who used to be her friend, suddenly hyper-aware of every movement Minho made.

"I belong to the maze." Gally's voice was low, final.

"Just put down the gun."

"We all do."

The gunshot was loud and resounding, and everything seemed to move at once. Chuck threw himself forward, the air ringing with panicked shouts and protests, and Minho exploded into action beside her, lunging forward with a spear she didn't even know he had. Newt moved like lightning, using his grip on her to yank her backwards to his chest, turning them away from the scene so that his back was to Gally, covering as much of her body with his as possible.

There was a gasping croak of pain, the echo of glass shattering, and Ada's legs nearly gave out on her when she finally turned herself in Newt's grip, seeking out the source of that cry. She couldn't stop the startled sob that escaped her, couldn't even react as Newt's arms went slack with horror.

Gally gasped for breath, his face a broken mask of pain and heartbreak, hands clutching at the spear Minho had thrown straight through his chest. Blood ran down his chest, slicking his skin and clothes. He stared down at the spear as if he couldn't quite believe it was there, and for a moment he looked exactly like the frightened boy who had come up in the box.

He seemed to stand there for a lifetime, suspended in a haze of pain and disbelief, before he slumped to his knees and crumpled to the floor. The light in his eyes flickered and died out, and his gasps for breath stopped, and it was all Ada could do not to scream.

Static was fizzing in her ears again. She could feel it creeping in, that same numbness that was there when George died, when Alby died. It crept in the corners of her mind, blurred the world, until she was just a body in a sea of nothingness.

"Thomas..." It was the small voice to her right that brought her back. She turned just in time to see Chuck slump forward, Thomas scrambling to catch him as they thudded to the ground.

"What's happening?" The words were barely a whisper on her lips, nothing in comparison to the panicked mumbling coming from Thomas, the gasps of realisation as the others around them stared down at them.

"No, no, no-"

Ada glanced up at Newt, and then Minho, and any hope she had that this wasn't real vanished when she saw the growing horror on their faces. Red bloomed across Chuck's chest.

"Hey, look at me, look at me." Thomas begged, grabbing onto Chuck anywhere he could reach, hands frantic and unsure. "Oh, shit. Chuck, look at me, alright? I got you, I need you to just hang on."

Ada scrambled forward, sinking to her knees beside them, unable to choke down her sob when Chuck looked up at her with wide eyes wet with tears. He looked so lost, innocent, and as she smoothed her hand over his hair, trying to provide him with a shred of comfort, all she could see was Avin, lifeless and still and so young. "It's okay," he said quietly, first to her and then to Thomas, his voice so strong despite the fact that he knew he was dying.

"No-"

"Thomas," Chuck lifted something in his hand, something small and wooden. Her heart cracked in her chest when she realised that it was a wooden carving, just like the kind Avin used to make. The wooden bird still burned a hole in her pocket, its presence a never wavering reminder. It meant the world to her, and that Chuck was trying to give Thomas the same semblance of comfort had helpless tears streaming down her cheeks.

"No, no, Chuck you're gonna give that to them yourself, remember?"

"Take it."

"No-"

"Take it," Chuck begged, and something about the finality in his voice must have convinced Thomas, because his fingers curled around the wooden statue. "Thank you." He looked up at Ada, and her fingers stilled in his hair. She tried to smile down at him through the tears, desperate to give him whatever comfort she could, to push past the screaming in her head. "I'll say hi to him for you."

Those final words were what broke her. She curled herself around him, not even trying to hide her pain as his gasping breaths came to a stop. Thomas was yelling, sobbing as he cupped Chuck's face, but Ada didn't hear it as she scrambled away, her entire body trembling.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. They were out, damnit, they were free.

Chuck deserved to go home to his family, whatever was left of it. He deserved to see life outside of the maze, outside of the walls he had been trapped in.

Daylight broke the dark, cutting through the lab as the door slid open, the machinery whirring over the sound of Thomas' anguish. Ada turned through bleary eyes to squint at the rectangular patch of light, barely even processing as Newt took her hand in his, stepping closer towards her. He lifted his hand to his face, squinting towards the door.

The shape of black figures formed, silhouetted in the blinding light, but Ada could barely even process the panic as they ran straight towards them. Frypan and Teresa were yelling, grabbing at Thomas and trying to drag him away. Ada barely caught a glimpse of the black masks and grey gear before the men were on them, hands closing over her arms and dragging her backwards.

The panic swamped her, the hands unfamiliar and unrelenting, and nausea rose in her throat as she thrashed against their grip, shying away from their touch. "Get off me!"

She was shoved forward, falling into line with Newt and Minho, and then the hands on her were welcome and familiar as they led her towards the exit, feet pounding against the ground. She spared one last glance behind her at Gally, at Chuck, but the lab was nothing more than a blur of bodies and movement.

The sunlight blinded her as tile turned to sand beneath her feet, boots sinking and skidding, and then they were running, heart pounding in her throat as she lifted her hands to shield her face. The world was a dazzling haze of yellows and gold, of blinding sunlight and oppressive heat.

There was a helicopter waiting for them. It stood proudly on the dune, a symbol of their freedom, and Ada stared at it with her heart in her throat as she was ushered up the steps, into the cool and the quiet and safety that came with it.

Thomas was shoved in after her, and the door clicked shut, sealing them in.