Chapter Text
One by one, the exhausted Gladers slide down the griever hole. The metal is covered in an oily slime, coating their already filthy clothing with an additional layer of grease and grime. They’ve been through hell in the past few days, but a trip down a nasty slide is worth the potential of freedom.
Raised voices echo faintly up the slide, but it's too muffled to be anything coherent. Winston, staying behind to make sure all the younger boys get through, is too far to hear any of it.
“This must be a mistake, it has to be,” Teresa turns slowly in a circle, disbelief and dismay coloring her voice, “This-
They’re at the end of another Maze, having slid out of what the Griever Hole would have been. One with similar walls, made of similar stone and metal, surrounded by similar darkness. But this Maze feels… different.
The ivy doesn’t hang free, unbound and allowed to tumble down the walls in a riot of green. This ivy is twisted and braided into a series of elaborate symbols. There are crude torches at each of the corners, blazing with a smoky fire that has a rancid smell.
There are bones here. Bones arranged into a pile. Bones that have been picked clean, knife marks visible upon all of them. There is a high table, an altar of sorts, covered in scalps with meticulously clean hair. There is a throne, made of wood and skulls, covered in animal pelts
Teresa stops, cold and dread sinking like a stone into the pit of her stomach. The rest of the Gladers fall into an uneasy silence.
The air is rent by a series of howls and the pounding of feet. Voices yip and yap and shout in a savage joy. Dozens of voices, dozens of feet, joined by the clang of metal on metal and wood on stone.
Chuck, pressed into Thomas’ side, grabs his hand tightly, a whimper falling from his lips. Minho, not unkindly, places his hand over Chuck’s mouth, muffling the sound of his cries.
The cacophony of noise gets closer and closer. The very air is clogged with the stench of fear, burning fat, and savage rage. This is not what was supposed to happen. This is not where the Gladers were supposed to land.
Teresa should have suspected something when she and Thomas were cut off from access to anything about the Group B Trials. The increasing concern and worry exhibited by Rachel and the intense fascination of Aris before all of their insertions should have been a warning sign. She should have been more worried when she never received any contact from Aris via their link.
She never felt Rachel’s activate.
They’re quickly surrounded by a wall of young women and teenaged girls, all exits into this strange and terrifying Maze have been blocked off. There is nowhere for the Gladers to turn. Nowhere for them to run.
Two young women step forward, moving with an almost lupine grace. The taller one has tight curls shorn into an almost buzz cut, wearing necklaces of bone that make a tinkling sound when she moves. Her hand is interlaced with the blonde’s, who’s bright hair is pulled back from her face in a series of braids, exposing the markings curling down her cheeks and neck, disappearing under the cape she wears.
They prowl around the knot of terrified Gladers, eyes roaming over them like apex predators examining their prey before taking a killing shot. The others girls have fallen into a tense, anticipatory silence, a hairs' breadth from descending into mayhem.
“The Maze has delivered!” The blonde declares triumphantly, speaking with an accent similar to Newt’s, swinging her hands skywards and exposing the knives strapped to her hips.
“We are rewarded!” The girls reply as one, their voices a wall of sound boxing the Gladers in even further.
Gally, ever bold, ever impulsive, steps forward, “Who are you?” he asks, voice a challenge, arms crossed over his chest, glaring at the pair of women in front of his boys, his family. He’d come too far, overcome too many fears, lost too many people, just for them all to die here.
The taller of the two women rears back, as if Gally’s words are a physical affront. She draws a machete from a harness on her back and stalks forward, the blade held like a spear, until it’s pressed into the soft flesh under Gally’s jaw, “Prey don’t ask questions of The Hive, boy,” she spits, eyes feral with rage.
“Harriet.” The blonde woman’s voice is soft, but its impact is instant. Harriet pushes the machete into Gally’s neck enough to nick his skin, causing blood to well and spill out of the cut, before jerking it inwards and to the left in a fluid motion.
Blood sprays from Gally’s ruined neck. He falls first to his knees, grasping the torn flesh and muscle in his hands, blood dribbling out of his mouth as he tries and fails to speak. His hands, drenched in blood, fall to his side as he falls forward, his body making a dull thud as it hits the stone floor of the Maze.
The savage girls of this strange Maze erupt into joyous screams and howls. The air of the Maze has reached a fever pitch; a heady mix of fear, anticipation, and revelry. You could cut the tension with a knife.
Chuck is far from the only Glader to cry now.
Harriet, face and chest covered in Gally’s blood, wipes her machete on Gally’s back. She stalks back to her counterpart, the blonde pulling her into a heated kiss. Harriet’s hands are fisted into her hair as the blonde kisses and sucks her way down Harriet’s cheek and neck, before stopping abruptly by a whispered word from Harriet.
The blonde turns to face them all, lips and cheek smeared with Gally’s blood. She’s unabashed, proud even, of the blood smeared across her and her lover. “The Maze has answered the prayers of the Hive,” she declares, her voice taking on a reverent tone, like a priest leading prayers to a long forgotten deity, “long have we prayed for sufficient stock, long have we sacrificed the unworthy to the glory of The Maze. The Maze rewards Its chosen flock.”
It starts as a low rumble, before building into an unbearable roar. There are a jumble of fevered, fervent voices. It’s a cacophony of noise, nearly unbearable to the beleaguered Gladers.
“We are rewarded!”
“Glory to the Maze!”
“The Maze rewards!”
“Honor to the Hive!”
“Honor to the Queens!”
“Honor to the Maze!”