Finality | The Maze Runner / Newt ? ?

epilogue: part two

They were starting to heal. Telling them would only inflict more damage, Thomas and I agreed.

That was the worst year I had. My productivity declined, I avoided Minho as best as I could, and nothing could cheer me up. My brain tore at itself as I struggled to come to terms with what I felt. To the other Immunes, I must have seemed insane. But none of them had their memories wiped. None of them understood that liking or loving Newt was all I knew for such a large part of my life.

What if, when I get up there, I'll be attracted to, like, Minho or something. I certainly hadn't been wrong about that— the feelings had just blossomed over an extended period.

It was during that time when Thomas finally spoke the truth of what the blond boy had revealed to him during his final moments. I remembered the cracking of my chest as he struggled to repeat the words— how Newt's limp had been a result of his attempted suicide. That was how they'd known that the ivy didn't go all the way to the top. I recalled how he'd known about my existence prior to my arrival in the Glade and wondered what my role in that was.

But things got steadily better after that. I began to feel more at peace with myself as our civilization grew, as the Dark Years came to a close, as children started being born, and as hope began to break through the overbearing clouds of despair once again. The sun seemed to shine brighter than ever. Days were longer, the air always fresh and clean in my lungs.

Minho and I fell into each other fairly easily once I stopped distancing myself from him. Thomas caught on fairly quickly and teased us from time to time, causing Minho to verbally threaten to skewer him and leave him in the woods or something else of that same violent nature. But my brother would merely ignore those statements and wait for another opportunity to be annoying— as every sibling did best.

Years ago, I would never have thought that the idea of us having romantic feelings for each other was possible. We hardly ever got along as teenagers. Our personalities clashed too violently, not a few months passing until we would get into another friendship-altering argument. But as we grew and shaped into new people, it was like it was supposed to happen all along. Nobody was as close to me. Nobody understood my thoughts and decisions so well. It was like our brains were sometimes on the same wavelength.

Five years later, at the respective ages of twenty-six and twenty-five, Brenda and Thomas welcomed a beautiful baby boy into the world. They decided unanimously to name him after our curly-haired best friend in the Glade.

I would never forget the time when Brenda, my brother, Minho, and I were eating breakfast in the mess hall when Thomas had suddenly blurted, "Chuck."

Minho and I stared at him in confusion. Even after so long, my heart still struck with pain at the mention of his name. Only a very pregnant Brenda seemed to understand what he meant and replied with a simple, "Okay."

With Brenda's bronze skin and Thomas' eyes, I was certain it would be the most adorable baby I'd ever seen in my entire life.

Until, the next year, when I had a child of my own.

She was hairless at first, with Minho's heritage evident in her eyes and skin tone and my mouth and facial structure. Chuck had just celebrated his first birthday a few months prior and didn't understand the concept of people now fawning over a new baby. He didn't like that his parents were staring at the newborn, so he bopped his father on the nose hard with the side of his chubby fist and gave him a nosebleed. Then, upon seeing the blood, burst into tears.

It was a very eventful birth. Even Jorge got a bit misty-eyed.

She wasn't named yet. I stared at her for a long time, admiring her as she slept in my arms, a single thought plaguing me over and over. Minho must have detected it in the way my eyebrows were furrowed. He crossed the tiny square that served as our living room and pressed his thumb to the crease to smooth it away.

"I'm not going to object to it, you know," he said.

My eyes immediately shined with tears; I blamed the post-birth hormones.

We named our daughter Teresa.

And as the next generation of Immunes came into the world, some of the other families we'd rescued began asking us the names of the ones we'd lost. A baby Alby popped up somewhere. Rosa from Group B found a new face in a newborn girl. It had me thinking that maybe W.I.C.K.E.D was wrong— that instead of being named after famous people from the past, the tale of what we'd accomplished would be told in history long after we were gone.

W.I.C.K.E.D is good. Maybe that hadn't been true in the end, but it had led me to something that was.

THE END.

_____

um ??? it's over ???

warning: long rant ahead

i've spent four (!!!) years writing this trilogy. it took me that long to power through ages of writer's block, to bring this story to a close, and to say goodbye to the OC i've written about for the longest time.

to dylan,
thank you for the ride. you started out as a spur of the moment decision in 2014, a mess of clichés that i somehow fixed into a suitable plot. i will miss writing about your adventures and your amazing sibling dynamic with thomas. i'm very sorry your life kinda sucked, but you got this happy ending so i guess it's alright

to my readers,
thank you for sticking with me. i know that, at times, i was terribly inconsistent with updates (aka me taking 6 months to write chapter 7 lol) and yet you continued to follow the story until the end. i can't thank you enough for your countless comments and unending support

to my future readers,
if this has already been published and you're reading it after the series is over, hello! i hope you enjoyed the books, whether you read them in a week or over the course of several months. i truly appreciate you giving this series a chance!

also, to those who may think that minho and dylan being endgame was a half-assed attempt at me trying to make a fairytale ending: it actually wasn't. i've been carefully planning this ever since the middle of the first book— this is the same image i had for the epilogue from way back in 2015. i can give you exact moments of foreshadowing if you want concrete proof!

i've always said that dylan is her own character and doesn't exist because of newt. hopefully i was able to properly reinforce that idea in this epilogue, because it's something i think needs to be spread across every fanbase. although this was a newt fanfic, i found it essential that dylan would move on after him— it wouldn't be realistic for her to stay single from the age of 16 until the rest of her life.

also, this is the first gif of dylan smiling in a really long time. it felt good to include it (':

-kristyn

(but be prepared for a chapter of extras because i'm nostalgic trash)

PS: WANT MORE OF THE "DIFFERENT TRILOGY" CHARACTERS? Here are places to check out for more content!

— WP TikTok: stilestastic.wp (edits for my stories)

— Other TikTok: stilestastic (memes/other things related to my stories & writing — the account is private, but I will accept you!)

— Meet my OCs book: Sunshine (more details about my OCs)

— Pinterest: stilestastic