Romans & histoires Gladers Maze Runner

We couldn't stop them all. One got through. Its claws raked across Marcus's back. He screamed and went down. "MARCUS!" Brady grabbed him, hauling him up. Blood poured from the wounds. Real blood. The Hunters could hurt us even if we couldn't kill them. Another broke through. Caught Willow's shoulder. She grit her teeth and kept moving. We were being torn apart. "There!" Erina pointed ahead. Through the mass of Hunters, I could see it. A doorway carved into the cavern wall. It glowed with the same blue light as the safe zones.

The wall ahead was collapsed masonry. The hunter stepped into view. Tall. Bone-plated. Teeth glinting in the low light. It tilted its head. Adrian whispered, “I didn’t sign up for this.” The hunter replied—not with words, but with a pulse. The corridor shuddered. The Spine team arrived seconds later. Riven dropped from an overhead maintenance hatch, landing between Adrian and the predator. Cael and Solin flanked the corridor mouth. Marra took position behind fallen debris, rifle steady despite the healing ribs.

The forest stretched endlessly before them, a tapestry of gnarled roots and whispering leaves that seemed to close in with every step. Aria shifted Rollan in her arms, his small weight a constant reminder of the stakes they carried. His mark—a crescent etched into his skin—glowed faintly beneath his sleeve, a beacon of hope and danger in equal measure. Beside her, Caden hacked through the undergrowth, his machete glinting in the dappled light, his jaw set with the resolve she’d come to rely on. Behind them, Elara clutched the relic, her sharp eyes darting to every shadow.

"Echo Prime's core base is built into the north face. Subterranean. We'll need to breach from the glacial entry." Mirabel loaded her sidearm. "Cold enough to freeze hope out of your lungs." Darius smirked. "That's why I brought a flamethrower." Bella smiled faintly. "Let's make sure we come back with something more than scars." Xavier leaned in. "We come back whole." --- The drop was brutal. Wind screamed. Ice bit. But they landed safely on the narrow ledge where a disguised hatch glowed faintly beneath the snow. Sera guided them through the labyrinthine corridors. "The central core is shielded. I can't go further without someone on the inside."

The majority of the Gladiators found they had nowhere else to go, either home was a faraway dream or they had no home. Xander was able to provide Luna Eloise with the specifics to remove the inhibitor chips safely so every shifter who had one, was now free of them. “Hunji, I can not thank you enough for everything you have done here for me and our people in this short time.” I heard Jasper's words but I let them drift in one ear and out the other. “Is there anything we can do for you to make your journey easier? I could send a few men with you…”

But I just stood up I fell off my center of gravity and rolled down the stairs, scrambled to get up but fell into a large hole, the light was too dark I simply did not notice the hole. It was like a trap used by hunters to catch large beasts, with something like a wooden thorn inside. A small arm-length thing cut through my calf, and the pain almost made me black out. I took a breather, took the hair rope off my head and tied it to my leg, thinking of getting up and climbing out, but the touch under my hand was strange, like something like clothes, and a sticky feeling, and I just didn't notice the smell around me, and now there's a smell in the air - a disgusting stench.

Our eyes met as the door shut behind me. The maze of people that blocked my way earlier to reach room 3254 now were not such a hassle for me to surpass. This time around I just let them swallow me whole. As I reach the doors I can see Leah Meyers, the woman at the front desk, looking at me with the same hazed expression as earlier. I locked eyes with her for just a brief second, before I burst through the glass sliding doors as it opened. The weather is quite hot today, unusually hot. A strange ringing sound started to sound in my ears. How strange?

The Shadow-Runner came to a jarring halt as the nose of the boat wedged into a narrow silt bank at the end of the drainage tunnel. The engine sputtered one last time, sending a dying cloud of steam into the freezing, stagnant air of the cavern. Around them, the darkness was thick enough to feel, broken only by the thin, flickering beams of their tactical flashlights. "This is as far as the water takes us," Julian whispered, his voice echoing off the damp concrete walls. He reached into the back of the boat and pulled out two heavy climbing harnesses and a pair of pressurized magnetic gloves.

A figure detaches itself from the grey fog of the basalt ridge ahead. It isn't a coastal raider, and it isn't an elite fighter from the Western Coalition. It is a runner from the local border-clans—the Unranked scavengers who live in the black caves between the high peaks and the sea. The male is small, his ribs showing through a tattered cloak of seal-hide, his scent a pathetic mixture of old mud, raw fish, and absolute, debilitating terror. He drops straight onto his belly in the frozen slush, his hands flat against the shale as Clyde steps into his space. "Speak," Clyde growls, his voice a subterranean vibration that makes the pebbles around the runner's fingers rattle.

Or what he’s become. The side of his face looks like it had healed badly from a major burn, leaving behind a thick, red scar. ‘Hello Ronn’, he says dryly, ‘Good to see you still remember me’. ‘What happened?’ Gylen asks. ‘That, my friend, is a tale that requires a lot of ale’, Pedran says, throwing glances around, ‘Where are the drinks?’ ‘They attacked the Glade’, Edril says, punching Pedran’s arm. ‘What?’ ‘They did, those beasts’, Quain hisses. ‘And all these while I thought they were in league with the patrol’, Allos quips. ‘It seems they were’, Quain says, dropping to the ground, ‘Can I get some water, please?’