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My name is Thomas, he thought. That … that was the only thing he could remember about his life.
“If you ain’t scared,” Alby said, “you ain’t human. Act any different and I’d throw you off the Cliff because it’d mean you’re a psycho.”
Klunk’s another word for poo. Poo makes a klunk sound when it falls in our pee pots.”
If Chuck was right, he’d just discovered a link to the rest of the boys. A common pattern to their memory losses. They all remembered their names. Why not their parents’ names? Why not a friend’s name? Why not their last names?
“Listen to me, Greenbean.” The boy wrinkled up his face, folded his arms. “I’ve seen you before. Something’s fishy about you showing up here, and I’m gonna find out what.”
I know what old Benny baby’s going through. I’ve been there. And I saw you during the Changing.”
“Something out there—it feels familiar.”
“Chuck, I … I think I’ve been here before.”
“Find our way out, Greenie,” Newt said. “Solve the buggin’ Maze and find our way home.”
Why do I remember these animals? Thomas wondered.
“It’s a girl,” he said.
“Everything is going to change.”
She’s the last one. Ever.
She did seem familiar; he felt a connection to her, though it was impossible to grasp in his mind.
he saw the word WICKED scrawled down
It was the sick boy. It was Ben.
“You scared of that pip-squeak? Dude, you got a lot to learn. Freakin’ Newbies.”
Lol
“Only seen three Banishments, Tommy. All as nasty as the one you peeped on last night. But every buggin’ time, the Grievers leave the collar on our doorstep. Gives me the willies like nothin’ else.”
Order. Last thing we need is you screwin’ that up.”
he realized he was worried about the girl. Concerned for her welfare. As if he knew her.
a creepy glow on six capital letters smeared across the torso, as if they had been written with blood: WICKED
But nothing sent chills up and down Thomas’s spine like the haunted, deathly moans that somehow escaped the creature when it sat still, like the sound of dying men on a battlefield.
Minho looked at Thomas. “I nominate this shank to replace me as Keeper of the Runners.”
Nauuur
“I know who you are,” Alby repeated slowly. “Seen it. Seen everything. Where we came from, who you are. Who the girl is. I remember the Flare.”
“If all else fails,” Newt said, interrupting Thomas’s thoughts, “we’ll send ya to the Grievers—get ya stung so you can go through the Changing. We need your memories.”
Tom, we’re the last ones. It’ll end soon. It has to.
It was you and me, Tom. We did this to them. To us.
It’s weird to feel sad and homesick, but have no idea what it is you wish you could go back to, ya know?
“I swear, Chuck,” he whispered to no one. “I swear I’ll get you back home.”
WORLD IN CATASTROPHE: KILLZONE EXPERIMENT DEPARTMENT
Tom, I just triggered the Ending.
the fact they could no longer see the sun probably meant they’d never been able to in the first place.
Everything about this place was fake.
The Maze is a code, Tom. The Maze is a code.
All I have are faint impressions—that you and I were important, that we were used somehow. That we’re smart. That we came here for a reason. I know I triggered the Ending,
WICKED is good
“The walls, you shuck. The Doors. They didn’t close tonight.”
“Somebody burned the Map trunks,” Newt said. “Every last one of ’em.”
FLOAT and CATCH.
“If you’re going to decipher a hidden code from a complex set of different mazes, I’m pretty sure you need a girl’s brain running the show.”
Lol
FLOAT CATCH BLEED DEATH STIFF PUSH
So he was going to get stung by a Griever. Go through the Changing. On purpose.
“It was hidden in the wall movements of the Maze for a reason. I should know—I was there when the Creators did it.”
“We can’t go back to where we came from. I’ve seen it, remembered awful, awful things. Burned land, a disease—something called the Flare. It was horrible—way worse than we have it here.”
World In Catastrophe: Killzone Experiment Department. WICKED.
Kill the Maze
Then, inexplicably, Chuck was there, diving in front of him.
“Thomas,” Chuck whispered. “Find … my mom.”
“I promised I’d save him, take him home! I promised him!”
The woman pulled back enough for someone’s flashlight to reveal her features—pale, wrinkly skin covered in horrible sores, oozing with pus. Sheer terror filled Thomas, froze him. “Gonna save us all!” the hideous woman said, spit flying out of her mouth, spraying Thomas. “Gonna save us from the Flare!” She laughed, not much more than a hacking cough.
