Redamancy (Minho | The Maze Runner)

二十一: Sour

AN: Hey all :D I managed to squeeze in an update today thankfully, I didn't think I'd actually make it xD I hope y'all enjoy it! (: also if you guys are a fan of the game Undertale, I started a new fanfiction on it recently because I became total Undertale trash after watching the gameplay. So like, if you're into the game and all it would mean a lot if you guys considered giving it a check out! <3

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Kill us all like the rest?

What was Ben going on about?

How did this even happen?

Unable to continue listening to the rest of the meeting, Qiufeng crept down from the ledge and retreated into the darkness behind Homestead.

After what had happened with Ben, a meeting was held to try and make sense of what he had said. She was allowed inside the meeting room to give a testimony of her witness in the maze, however after hearing whatever she had to say, they told her to leave. Presumably to talk about her. She had listened in for the first ten minutes before realising that they weren't coming to any conclusions, and just bringing up more questions.

Questions like whether she was a threat to them, or about her past. They had asked Gally if he could recall more of who she was since he was stung before, but all he remembered was her and her brother. Apparently according to him, he vaguely recalled that they were always kept away from the rest of the children in a separate room and had only caught a few glimpses of them through a thick panel of glass. They were always together and the creators spoke occasionally about them in front of the young gladers – about how they were the hope for something.

But it wasn't just Ben and what he said that was puzzling everyone. She had heard something else bizarre had happened while they were away from the glade from the meeting earlier and some gladers that she had talked to. This afternoon, the newbie alarm had sounded even though Thomas had just arrived yesterday, and about half an hour later the box had suddenly come up again. They weren't sure what they were expecting, but there really was someone inside the box as usual. But... It was an unconscious girl in the box.

On first sight it seemed as though she was dead, they told her. Her skin was a deathly pale, almost translucent and she looked like she wasn't breathing. Either that her breaths were barely noticeable at that moment. The whole glade had run over to have a looksee and Alby looked frustrated. Thomas seemed panicked, they said, because Alby was taking out his confusion on the poor fella and interrogating him a little more fiercely than he should have. It made Qiufeng wonder for a moment if Alby was trying to make up for that earlier when Ben was attacking Thomas. Either way, halfway through the questions the girl suddenly sat up as if she had been awake the entire time and she spoke.

"Everything is going to change."

She said before collapsing back unto the ground, one fist shooting up into the air, her arm unnaturally rigid. Newt had pried her fingers open, revealing a small note that had five words messily scrawled across the paper in thick black ink as if the author didn't have a lot of time to write it. "She's the last one. Ever."

It freaked her out a little, although under different circumstances she would've been kinda happy that there was another girl in the glade. The note was rather ambiguous and could've meant a lot of things, but the most straightforward interpretation was that she was the last kid sent up forever. That probably meant they HAD to find a way out soon right? They couldn't stay inside here especially if the supplies were going to stop coming.

Qiufeng slumped down unto the ground against a tree. So much had happened today, and for some reason she had a really weird feeling in her gut that everything wasn't a coincidence. It didn't seem too farfetched that the creators were all behind this, to push them to find a way out. However it's been three years and the runners have found nothing. It didn't even make sense that they were here in the first place, she couldn't think of any other reason but perhaps a sick television series that was coming to an end or some morbid experiment by mad scientists.

It was just too much to take in. She sighed and let her hands fall to the side of her body. There was an unfamiliar feeling against her left hand where grass should've been and she blinked, glancing to the side. When she lifted her hand, there was a small folded piece of paper lying on the ground.

That was weird. Perhaps it was one of the notes from the map room. Qiufeng picked it up, unfolding it in a deft movement without a second thought.

Her eyes widened at the thick black ink that was scribbled across the paper. It was the note that the supposedly dead girl had in her hand. The exact words that her friends had recited her earlier, they were right in front of her eyes.

She's the last one. Ever.

It sent a chill down her spine as she peered at it closely. Then her nose picked up something and she made a face at a faint sour-ish smell that was coming from the paper. Ugh, disgusting. She turned away. Why was it even out here in the first place? It should've been with Newt or Alby, this was a really important clue. It didn't make sense that an important item such as this would be lying around randomly at the back of homestead. She glanced around to see if there were signs of anyone nearby that might've carelessly dropped the note, but she was alone and the keepers were all still in the meeting.

Qiufeng held out the note in front of her thoughtfully as one of the gladers lit up a torch a little way up ahead in preparation for the night. She'll just hold onto it until the keepers were done and probably pass it to Newt. Alby was way too frequently in his bad moods recently and she didn't want to deal with that, especially not after all that had happened today.

Still, she couldn't help but wonder why the note seemed so untidy. The creators didn't seem very meticulous. Now that there was light coming from the nearby torch, she could tell there were tiny splatters of black ink around the note and some parts of the paper seemed uneven in texture. As if someone had split water on it when writing.

However on closer inspection the wrinkled surface was almost a little too careful, too... Unnatural.

Something in her mind clicked and she scrambled up and forward towards the torch, almost tripping and tumbling headfirst into the flames in her franticness. She grasped at the base of the torch for a moment to stabilize herself before taking a second to calm down. Qiufeng stared into the hungry flames that were licking at the night sky. Then she glanced down at the note and took a deep breath, holding it a little way up from the torch.

She waited.

Qiufeng took a moment to ensure that her index finger and thumb were carefully positioned such that her hand wouldn't catch fire by accident.

Another few seconds passed.

Nothing happened and it seemed as though she had thought wrong about her suspicion. She sighed and closed her eyes, a little disappointed. She had thought that perhaps there was something more to the paper. Opening her eyes again, she was about to pull back the note when suddenly, just barely, brown started to spread across the paper where the surface was uneven before.

"I knew it!" she squealed to herself quietly as her outstretched hand trembled in excitement. The sourish smell and the way the wrinkled surface of the note seemed too neat. It was invisible ink written in lemon juice after all! It seemed a little weird that she would remember this all of a sudden, but she was too excited to care.

The brown soon started forming into visible letters and she squinted at the paper, whispering to herself softly as the words became clear.

"Only... In... Danger... You will... L..."

She frowned at the last word that had not yet formed, while endless possibilities filled her mind.

Learn? Land? Laugh?

There was a sudden metallic clicking sound to her right and something just about brushed past her head, making her jump in terror. The note fluttered out of her hand and she panicked, her body reacting instinctively to try and catch it before it flew away. However her fingers fell short and it landed right in the middle of the fire where the hungry flames gobbled it up immediately.

Qiufeng just stared at the flames and the dying note, before her attention was grabbed by a flash of silver from above. A beetle blade scuttled out of sight, just over the roof of Homestead.

Turning back to the fire, the note had already been burnt to a crisp.

She had just destroyed something that could potentially have been a very vital piece of information.