The Maze Runner :
James Dashner
He wakes up inside a metal box with no recollection of the day before. He knows what parents are, what a family is, yet he knows nothing of his own. He knows what a bike is, how to ride one, but has no idea who taught him. The one thing he knows about himself is his name. Thomas.
Thomas gets out of the box and progresses forward. He meets a wall. Thomas has no idea where he is., how he got there, or why he’s there—after finding the wall he is left with nothing but full-blown despair.
All of a sudden a rope falls on his head. He follows the rope up to see a boy of about eighteen holding the rope. The boy, Newt, tells him to grab the rope and hold on, keeping it in his grip. As Thomas is hauled up he is greeted by boys. All of them are in the teens. They call him Greenie and Greenbean. One of them tells him not to klunk. Thomas does not understand some of these words these boys use so easily; he does not even know who these boys are.
Thomas is introduced to the leader Alby, a nineteen year old boy, and to Chuck—the twelve year old boy who is now responsible for making sure Thomas learns about where he is and how to act. Chuck tells Thomas about the place.
He tells him the place he has come to is called Glade. All the people there are known as “Gladers.” He tells him that none of the boys know anything about the past, just like Thomas. Every month, a new boy is sent to the Glade. Every week, on the same day, supplies are sent to the Glade.
When the time draws near for the sun to set, Thomas sees a group of about six boys come from each one of the eight entrances. They are all red and sweaty. They run to a building and the door shut behind them. Upon seeing the spectacle, Thomas gains extreme curiosity. He asks Chuck who they are, however Chuck does not tell him.
Because of this, Tom asks Newt who they are and what they do. Thomas learns they are called runners. Around the Glade is a big maze. The runners run trying to find a path out of the maze. They remember as much as they can and come back to go to the building to map everything from memory. Thomas feels an overwhelming feeling of wanting to be runner. When he lets others know of this, Newt takes him at night to the big shack that is next to the map room. After the sun sets and the walls grind shut on their own, Thomas spots a weird looking animal on the border of the walls. It looks like a slug about eight feet long. It has mechanical arms sprouting out on the sides and a whole bunch of needles all around it. It is called a Griever. They are vicious creatures. If you are stung by them, you receive some of your memories and go into a nasty coma. You have to get a shot that comes with the supplies to survive. But when you do come to, your memories start fading.
“Some say it’s because the memories are too horrible. It’s like our brains are protecting us.” Still, Thomas has a desire to become a runner.
The next day, Thomas is woken by the shouts of boys. He runs outside to see what is occurring.
“The rope; someone get the rope.”
“We aren’t supposed to be getting anything till next week.”
“What do you think it is?”
Warily, Thomas approaches the metal box he arrived in yesterday. All of a sudden the leaders of the Glade, including the heads of each job, hoist up a person. Everyone was already surprised they were getting another person or supplies; seeing a girl puzzled them even more. The Glade had no girls. Not a single one; from the person two years ago to Thomas. They also didn’t ever have two new people arrive in the same month and especially not in consecutive days.
In her hand there is a note. “I am the last one,” it reads. Then, she falls into a coma. Soon after, in the forest section of the Glade, Ben, a boy who had been previously changed—stung by the Grievers—attacks Thomas and Alby comes to his rescue, firing an arrow at Ben’s cheek and banishing him into the Maze at night after he survives the arrow.
One day, Minho, the head/Keeper of the runners, tells Alby he found a dead griever. When Alby goes with him to inspect it, he gets stung. Apparently the griever wasn’t actually dead; just feigning. When Thomas sees that Alby and Minho won’t be able to make it to the Glade before the walls automatically close, he runs out—breaking the number one Glade rule—and joins Alby and Minho just before the walls clamp shut.
Miraculously, Thomas hides Alby and he and Minho survive the night. They even discover where all the Grievers come from, “The Griever Hole.”
When the three boys go back to the Glade in the morning, all the Gladers are surprised. No Glader has survived a night in the maze before.
However, since Thomas broke the Number One Rule and deliberately trapped himself in the Maze during night, The Glade leaders and Keepers have a meeting regarding Thomas’s possible punishment or praise, Newt replacing Alby as leader since Alby is being treated by the Med-jacks, the Glade “doctors.” During the meeting, Newt points out that Thomas has been involved with many recent strange events. Gally, a Keeper who does not get along well with Thomas, thinks that he is a spy from the Creators, the people who made the maze and the glade, and he should hold a severe punishment. Minho surprises Thomas, nominating him to replace him as Keeper of the Runners. Minho and Gally get into an argument where Minho physically and verbally torments Gally, resulting in Gally storming out of the meeting and his thoughts of Thomas’s wickedness resulting in him disappearing from the Glade.
After Thomas receives his punishment, one day in the Slammer (a Glade jail), he begins training as a runner.
Throughout the story, Thomas looks for a solution to the maze. When he is having no luck, he decides to get stung by a Griever on purpose so he will have some of his memory back. After he accomplishes his mission, he tells the Keepers and leaders of Glade know of his memories before he forgets.
Now Thomas knows what to do and how to solve the maze. With the help of Teresa, the girl that had recovered from her coma and somehow knew Thomas, figures out when you put the maze drawing together, they create letters then create words.
Thomas tells the leaders of his predicament of what to do with the words; they agree to follow with his plan. Thomas’ plan ends up working out but it leaves many Gladers dead. After the Gladers that decided to come and survived have exited the maze, they are approached by a crazed looking woman. She lets them know they were in the maze to see who was the bravest. However, they’re test is not over yet. All of a sudden, Gally, the boy they all presumed to be dead, comes and tries to kill Thomas. Before the blade can go through Thomas’s heart, Chuck, the boy Thomas thought of as a brother, steps in and gets killed against. Filled with rage, Thomas lunges at Gally and tries to choke him to death.
Newt and Minho pull Thomas off of Gally but no on stops him when he holds Chuck’s lifeless body and sobs.
Out of the blue, a group of civilians burst through the door and shoot down the women. The civilians turn out to be people who are against WICKED, the people who created the maze, and want to fight back against them. The Gladers are loaded onto the bus and they get ready for the journey.
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