But on Thomas’ second day, the elevator brings a teen girl. He feels driven to be a Runner.Įvery month, a new boy arrives in the elevator.

Thomas notices that parts of his new life somehow seem familiar, with fleeting impressions of memories just out of reach. The group has been working for two years to figure a way out of the Maze. Runners are the boys who daily run through the Maze, and when they return just before night, they map the section they ran since each night the walls move, reconfiguring the Maze. Thomas spends his first couple of days learning the ropes and various work positions, such as Baggers and Sloppers. He is the only one to offer Thomas friendship. The few boys who have undergone the Changing say they have seen Thomas in it, and they are convinced that he is bad or perhaps a spy.Ĭhuck, the youngest in the compound, is assigned to Thomas to help him acclimate. The boys call it the Changing - when part of the victim’s memory returns - but those who have lived through the Changing all agree that the real world is one they don’t want to return to. If the victim returns to the Glade in time, he can be injected with a serum that saves his life but it causes a strange, painful process. Occasionally a Griever stings one of the boys. Entrances to the maze automatically close at the same time every night, which protect the Glade from Grievers - large part-animal, part-mechanical monsters that bite, sting and sometimes kill. In an artificial environment built as an experiment by unknown, unseen scientists called Creators, they live in the Glade, and their lives revolve around trying to solve the Maze, a gray stone structure with walls hundreds of feet high. He finds he is part of a community of about 50 teen boys called Gladers, and all share the same pattern of memory loss. Feeling drugged, Thomas wakes up in an elevator car with no memory except his name.

The maze runner book series