maskormenacelogs | she said always remember never to trust me

[ Grey didn't come in here because of the prize. The concept of money is still strange to him, and he doesn't imagine that he'd win anyway. But he'd seen Thomas going for it, so he'd done the same. It's as simple as that. He's always looked to trustworthy people for guidance, and that's exactly what Thomas is. So he follows.

He quickly regrets that choice. The maze's walls are huge, enclosing, and (as he quickly discovers) prickly. Thomas' sustained speed makes it hard to keep up with him; Grey can sprint like a champion, but he's just not used to having this amount of space to run in. So eventually, he has to slow down and catch his breath. After that he's not just trying to find a way out - he's trying to find Thomas again.

The clowns, when they appear, send him into a panic. He reacts instinctively, throwing them away from himself, only to realised they're not actually trying to attack him. Embarrassed, he slinks away from them and then runs, and thereafter, he ignores them. Even though they make him start and tense every time they appear. He tells himself not to attack them, not to make things worse. And finally, there ahead of him, is thomas, and he manages an extra burst of speed to catch up to him. There's clear relief on his face when he does, but then he reaches to touch his friend's arm - and then, his notebook. What's this for? His quizzical expression asks the question for him, while his lungs burn and he tries to convince himself not to slow down again. ]

[ thomas hadn't really meant to leave grey behind, honestly. strangers, he would have, but thomas views grey like a kid who has gone through something like what the gladers did. maybe not as bad or worse, but there's a lot of similarities he sees in grey. and a lot of traits he really admires in him as well. his optimism, his honest friendliness and optimism, as well as his wounded distrust and sorrow. he wears his feelings fairly literally written on his skin, without shame, and thomas is fond of people capable of that.

but the sad fact was that he'd been so lost in his head, trying to swallow away the memories bubbling to the surface, wanting to make him scream or collapse and weep against a wall, that he doesn't notice his friend fall behind. it's not until the tap against his arm that he jumps a little, surprised, and notices grey there, looking utterly worn and struggling. he realizes, then, that he hadn't heard him for a while, and thomas immediately feels incredibly guilty. he'd never leave a friend behind like that, especially not here. so stupid of him.

ignoring the question for a moment, thomas slows rapidly, hand on grey's arm to slow him as well, until they're just stalled in the hall. he plops down heavily. it's about time for a break anyway. ] I'm so sorry, I... didn't see that I lost you. We can take a break.

[ thomas pulls a water bottle from one of his packs and uncaps it, holding it out for Grey. ] Here. Have some.

[ Grey doesn't blame Thomas. He blames himself. Always, he was pushed to be stronger, faster, the most agile, the most deadly. That's why he'd been needed. When things went south in the tail, when someone was in trouble or a fight was breaking out, Grey was there to end it. When the time for rebellion finally came, he'd been sent to fight. To kill.

But he'd been bred for that world, for his world. For the Train, with its enclosed spaces and its stale air. In a short, confined run, he'd be hard to catch. This is new and different. He's not trained for it and he's highly aware of his inadequacy. This is his fault, not Thomas'. So he shakes his head, his fingers lightly squeezing Thomas' arm to try and convey that he doesn't blame him.

That being true, he's still glad to fold onto the ground, and even more glad about the water. He drinks deeply from it, and then offers it back while he tries to catch his breath. After a moment, he pushes his sleeve up and shows Thomas the word Sorry. He'll do better. He knows they have to get out of here. After a moment he slides his jacket off and ties it around his waist. That'll be better. Stretching his neck, he nods on ahead of them. Are you ready? He'll keep up this time. He'll try. ]

[ thomas shakes his head at the 'sorry', waving it off where he sits, legs folded with forearms resting on his knees. ]

Don't be, man.

[ people aren't conditioned for the kind of running they did in the maze. they were, of course, and thomas knew he had been before even going into it. taking the offered bottle back, thomas takes a long drink from it, honestly happy for the break as well. he dismisses the gesture to continue as well. even the runners took breaks now and again. which, he brings up, by way of explanation, and conversation. ]

Back in the Glade, I was a Runner. [ he hasn't told Grey too much about the Maze, or where he came from. The gist of it, general details, all that, but nothing really in depth. he hadn't told him about the grievers. no one needs that nightmare in their head. ] Everyday, they'd go out and run the Maze, mapping it, trying to find an exit. We'd run for hours on end, take food out there with us, and stay until the doors closed.

[ he shrugs ] Doing this is kind of natural for me.

[ Grey sits down again at Thomas' gesture. He's not going to argue. He's managed to catch his breath, but his limbs still feel heavy. He thinks he ought to be able to push through it, but he's not sure.

Then Thomas starts to talk, and he forgets about moving anyway. His eyes narrow a bit, squinting in confusion. He doesn't have any concept of what a maze is. Until tonight it had been no more than an idea to him, and now when he imagines where Thomas had come from, he thinks it must look someting like this.

But doors? Trying to find an exit? And they took food with them, which means they were in charge of their own food. It wasn't handed out. Grey finds the word 'trap' on his arm, holds it out, and lifts his eyebrows at Thomas. He has that word so that he can talk about setting traps, trying to capture guards. Here it's a question, and he gestures at Thomas.

Were you trapped in the maze? He's right about that, isn't he? They hadn't just lived there. They had been someone's prisoners. ]

[ he reads the word, and opens his lips once, before shutting them again. it's hard to explain what the glade was, but, yes, it was a trap. definitely a trap. ]

Yeah, a trap. We were stuck there, but they wanted us to... solve this puzzle there wasn't ever an answer for.

[ he swallows, and there's a sudden wave of guilt. thomas designed that puzzle himself. he made sure there was no escape, except through the bloodbath at the end. he's the reason all those kids are dead, and all that blood is partly on his hands. pushing the thought away, thomas pulls one of his small knives from the front of his vest, and starts to carve a design into the dirt in front of them, making a rough sketch of what the maze, and the glade, looked like. ]

There was a square in the middle like this. We called it the Glade, and that's where they lived. And the whole thing, through doors in the north, south, east and west, there was the Maze. At night, the doors would close up. [ and thje grievers would come out. he swallows, but passes that part up. doesn't want to talk about them. it's too fresh and this maize now is too similar. ] It extended out miles from the Glade, and at night, the walls would move, reseting the design.

There wasn't an escape. There never was. It was a puzzle without an answer.

[ So not just a trap, then. A prison. Grey watches while Thomas draws, but then studies the other boy's face. Thomas is so much more familiar with the world than Grey, but then he's also lived through this.

Grey taps his arm, pointing out 'Why', and then gesturing at the drawing of the maze. They'd run every day, he said. Every day, yet there was no answer to the puzzle, so why did they keep doing it?

Taking out his own knife, he goes to the centre of the picture and writes the word SAFE, as neatly as he can. Which isn't all that neatly, but it's mostly legible. Quizzical eyes are raised to Thomas then. They could have stayed in the centre, couldn't they? Why keep trying to get out if they knew there was no way? ]

[ it's... difficult to explain what the maze was like in full, especially when he hadn't been there as long as newt, or alby. alby, who was so terrified of the outside, who didn't want to go but sacrificed himself to get the others out. ]

They didn't know there wasn't an answer. The others, before I got there... they were there two years. They couldn't risk that, one day, maybe, something new would open up. [ his lips press together, recalling the vague flashes of memory he'd had of the WICKED facility, or watching them in the maze for two years. his stomach turns. ] They didn't want to give up hope.

[ that's why they chose them, after all. to test their will to survive, to test if they could make something out of nothing, build a community and adapt. he looks at the word written over the glade. ] In a sense. Nothing came in the Glade, not for a while, because the doors would close at night, but... [ he swallows, shifting. ] There was a timeline, and when we reached the end, they forced us to move on. The doors stopped closing at night, supplies stopped being brought up, and the actual sky turned off. The whole thing was enclosed and we never knew it.

[ a grim look crosses his features, looking like he'd tasted something gross. ] It was an experiment.

[ Enclosed?

Grey stares at Thomas. So they weren't really outside? With his expression still questioning, he draws a circle around the maze Thomas has sketched, and looks up at him. Is this right? They were in a bubble?

It sends a thread of discomfort though Grey, because it reminds him of the Train. A whole world enclosed inside one place. After a moment, he takes his knife again, and sketches out something different. A line, a long line, split into a number of elongated rectangles. Inside them all, he writes words. One one end is 'Engine', and on the other is 'Tail'. Between them, he writes other things, things he had only learned by moving through them. 'Jail'. 'Food'. 'Fish'. 'Zoo'. 'School'. And so on. All the different parts of the world that the Train had saved. He points at Thomas' maze, and then at the Train, and he shrugs. Are they really so different, in the end? He's not so sure. ]

[ at the circle, thomas shrugs. he honestly isn't sure what it looked like from the outside. the time he's from, he'd only just made it out of the maze part and into the facility below it.

He leans over, hands clasped around his knees, and watches as grey draws in the dirt. ] Huh. They had all that on one train? [ couldn't have been easy to live on, not to pack all of civilization into one freaking train. Crazy. ]

Yeah. [ he gives a slightly amused, maybe sardonic, huff. ] Same, in that way. Though I think we had a lot more leg room than you.

[ Grey nods, and throws his arms straight out to each side. It was a big train. Much bigger than the trains here. He knows, he’s been on them. They sound something the same, and the movement was familiar, but everything else was different.

Despite that, Thomas is right. There hadn’t been a lot of space, not considering how many people needed to use that space. He reaches over, carving a firm line between each section to try and show that they were blocked off, that there wasn’t free movement between them. Then he taps his chest and points out the tail section. That was theirs. Home, like the glade was for Thomas. He gestures between the glade and the tail, trying to show that he thinks they’re the same. And the maze, with all its danger and its enemies, are equivalent to the rest of the Train for Grey. They’d never had grievers, of course, but then he doesn’t know that’s a factor. ]

she said always remember never to trust me

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