Her || The Maze Runner

Forty Eight

Well done, Marie. Her mother's voice told her. Honestly, Mara was surprised to hear her voice; she thought she had been abandoned, left to die. Now, you know what to do next, which does not include returning to your friends.

She sat against the wall, not quite sure what to feel. Was she supposed to be happy? She was leaving her friends behind and taking their escape, how would that make her happy? If anything, it made her feel the complete opposite. She felt like she had betrayed her friends, left them for the Grievers. Mara knew she had shut them down, but they were in the hands of WICKED, and she knew that once she left they would just turn them back on. They would bring the Grievers back to life.

Mara broke away from her thoughts; she had to keep going. Maybe she still had the chance to save her friends. Slowly, she stood up and pressed her hands against the stony wall next to the computer. The wall was slimy- just like the floor- and it was hard to grip, but she still managed to feel her way through the tunnel, and before she knew it, she reached a second tunnel.

Blackness; that's all she could see. There were no lights, nothing to show her where she was going. She didn't bother to look back at what she was leaving behind, all she could think about was what was ahead of her.

Luckily, Mara had become confident in the direction she was walking, and as she got further into the gaping darkness, she could walk without holding onto the walls around her. But her problem was that she felt too confident.

Her feet shot from underneath her, forcing her body to smash into the floor below her. Mara tried to stand up, but she couldn't- the floor below her was slanted, and she was slipping down the slope. Her head shattered against the oily surface, ripping out in pain as her body slid downwards in a rush. Mara had to ignore the pain; letting it overthrow her would have made it worse.

It was a slide- that was the conclusion Mara came to as she descended into the pits of the Maze. She held her hands out in an attempt to slow herself down but it was useless- the greasy surface made it impossible to do anything but skim the stone.

Panic throttled her insides and gripped at her heart. She hated the idea of not knowing when or where she was going to stop, or what she had gotten herself into. The smell of burnt plastic being released from the oil switched into mildew and rot, and Mara couldn't stop herself from gagging. If she threw up, it would just add to the mess around and on her, and then to make it worse, the tunnel began to twist and turn in what seemed like a complete spiral.

Everything around her was making her dizzy, and she was getting more nauseated by the second. It seemed to go on for a life time, and it was as if the journey would never end. Mara kept coughing and spluttered, fear still surging through her body as she continued to fall, and fall, and fall.

Nothing Mara did stopped the feeling of sickness spreading through her body. Mara closed her eyes to help take her mind off how her body spiralled out of control, but they weren't shut for long; her body lost its touch with the surface below her, and she was thrown from the tunnel to land with a thud on another cold floor.

Somehow, Mara managed to keep her insides inside her body as she scrambled to her knees. She sat on her knees and failed to fight the tears streaming down her cheeks. Almost immediately, she wiped her cheeks with her hands- which were covered in slime and grit. Mara shook her hands, bits of oil and grease flying around her. 

Mara took a minute with her eyes closed; trying to escape from the reality she was in. Why was she being sent away from the Glade? How was she ill? Questions poked holes in her head, and none of them had answers. Why did everything have to be so complicated? Why couldn't she have been born to another mum? All she wanted was a normal life, away from the Maze, the Glade, WICKED and everything else that came with it. But she was away from the Maze and the Glade, and she thought that was what she wanted. It was being away from people she thought she had lived with beyond her memory block, leaving them behind really was the worst part.

With one last sigh, Mara's eyes flickered open to see the underground chamber around her, it was the size of the Homestead, times ten. The room was overflowing with different types of technology; wires, machinery, computers and ducts laced every open space. On the right side of the room there seemed to be about forty to fifty large pure white pods, and on the other side; large glass doors which were impossible to see through due to the dim lighting.

Next, Mara locked eyes with the opposite side of the room, and with the eyes of one of the other twenty people in the room. The man she locked eyes with sat behind a darkly tinted window, just like every other man and woman Mara could see. The ghostly figures bared pale, skinny bodies and sat beyond their glass barrier, watching Mara. Observing her.

Mara didn't know what to do. She wanted to tell them what she thought of them, but the shock of seeing them had silenced her. All she did was sit there, and stare back. What happened? Less than an hour ago Mara was yelling at a Beetle Blade, telling them exactly what was on her mind and now she was speechless. Being in front of them had changed her, but she didn't know why. Still, she hated herself for not being able to say anything.

She was standing in front of WICKED, the creators, and yet, she was completely silent. But the silence didn't last very long.

Then without any warning, a woman walked into the room. She wore black trousers and a button-down white shirt with a logo printed across one side of it, reading WICKED. Her blonde hair was tightly pulled back, the way Mara remembered it. It seemed unbelievable, to finally see a grown-up, but this was not the grown up she wanted to see...

Her mother.

So as you know this book is nearly over (kinda obvious, I guess), and because of that there may be a gap between this book's end and the beginning of the next one, which will be made!

I wanted to take a moment to reccomend a few books to you (if you haven't read them), something for you to read after/during my series as well! These books include...

Chelsieisanerd - Tormented and the sequal, Taunted

riri_kempo- The first girl

ThatMysteriousReader- Limp

countrycake- Wonderwall

xoAwkwardDiamond- The Fighter

These are all great books, and in my opinion they all deserve to be read! Okay, that's all ;) I'll allow you to get back to what you were doing now haha ;)