The Maze Runner

by James Dashner

Thomas wakes up in a metal elevator that brings him to a place called the Glade. He has no memory of who he is or how he got there. He gradually discovers that the Glade is run by two boys: Alby, the leader, and Newt, the second-in-charge, who both maintain order by enforcing simple but effective rules. The elevator box surfaces from under the ground once every week supplying new food, tools, medicine, and sometimes weapons. Every month a new boy with no memory of anything but his first name finds himself in that elevator box. The Glade is surrounded by a square of 4 mile-high walls made of concrete. These walls have openings in them, which slide shut like doors every night. Outside the walls is the Maze, a labyrinth of high concrete walls covered in ivy that changes every day. The Maze houses strange, lethal creatures known as Grievers. Grievers are described as amorphous monsters of metal and flesh. The Gladers are trying to stay alive as well as "solve" the Maze by appointing 'runners' to run through it as fast as they can while tracking movements of the walls and trying to find an exit to escape.

One day after Thomas' arrival, a girl named Teresa is delivered through the elevator into the Glade with a note saying "She's the last one. Ever." It implies that there will be no more children sent into the Glade. The girl subsequently lapses into a long coma. When Thomas comes to visit her, he recognizes her, but cannot remember her name until he hears her voice telepathically in his mind telling him her name. Teresa wakes up and tells Thomas that they knew each other before they were sent into the Glade, and reveals that they could communicate telepathically.

Minho, the keeper of the runners, and Alby go into the Maze to see what they think is their first dead Griever. Alby is stung by the creature and, while Minho is trying to help him out of the Maze, Thomas runs in to help,just then the doors of the maze shut. All three are then stranded in the Maze overnight. Minho, believing Alby is dead without the Serum, tells Thomas to leave him and just run, looking for shelter so the Grievers don't find them. Thomas, unable to leave Alby to die, uses the vines on the walls to pull him up and out of the view of the Grievers, then attracts their attention and evades them. Minho sees Thomas's evasion tactic and uses it to send the four Grievers chasing them over the Cliff. Thomas, Alby, and Minho are the first people in the Glade to survive a night in the maze. After getting back to The Glade the next morning, Newt calls a Gathering of The Keepers to discuss what to do with Thomas. Some of the Keepers vote to relieve him of punishment while others (especially Gally) vote to lock him up in the Slammer (the jail block) as a punishment. Minho, however, nominates Thomas to replace him as the Keeper of The Runners. Gally decides to kick Minho off The Council, causing Minho to attack him. Thomas is locked up in jail and the next day he starts his training with Minho.

After their miraculous return, Teresa's arrival triggers a series of changes to life in the Glade: people start acting strangely, the sun disappears, the weekly deliveries of supplies stop coming, and the doors of the Maze stay open at night, which allows the Grievers to enter the Glade and hunt the children.

Thomas proposes that the walls of the Maze are not random, but that their movements are actually a code, leading to the discovery that the Maze is spelling out words. Thomas also discovers that what they previously thought was the Cliff is actually where the Grievers leave the Maze ("The Griever Hole"). This drives Thomas to think they need memories to get out, so he intentionally gets stung by a Griever so he can receive the antidote ("Grief Serum") and thereby go through the Changing. It is known that the Changing can trigger memories and sometimes violence.

Thomas and the Gladers find out what the pattern is. The Gladers decide to make a run for the exit, knowing that taking on the Grievers is a suicide mission, but deciding that nothing is worse than their current fate. They succeed, only to find out that they were test subjects in an experiment conducted by an organization called World In Catastrophe: Killzone Experiment Department (WICKED). The teenagers escape to a laboratory but encounter Gally, who had not escaped with them. Acting under mind control, he moves to throw a knife at Thomas, but a young Glader, Chuck, jumps to save him.

After briefly mourning the death of Chuck, all 20 Gladers are rescued. They are brought to a safe haven and told about catastrophic solar flares that caused an apocalyptic event, followed by a virus called the Flare that killed millions. The rescuers reveal that orphaned children are being tested to find a cure for the virus.

;Epilogue The epilogue is written in the voice of Chancellor Ava Paige—a feature of all the novels in the trilogy. She reveals that the group who rescued the Gladers may just be another variable in the experiment and that the Gladers weren't the only group being evaluated.