Chapter 2: (BEYOND THE WALLS)...

♤ Before dawn the next morning, Newt shows Peter a Griever through a window in one of the walls. It's a "horrifying mix of animal and machine," an enormous monster with metal arms that are capped with saws and shears. Grievers patrol the Maze at night, stinging any boy unlucky enough to be there. Alen explains that the Glade is divided into four areas: the Gardens, where they grow food, the Blood House, where they raise and butcher animals, the Homestead, where they live, and the Deadheads forest, which serves as a graveyard.

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♤ An alarm blares out through the Glade, and, for the first time ever, a girl arrives in the Box. She babbles incoherently and then falls into a coma, holding a note reading that reads, "She's the last one. Ever." The girl seems familiar to Peter, but he doesn't know why. Later, Peter sees a metal beetle engraved with the word WICKED; the beetle is a spy from the Creators of the Maze. Peter goes into the Deadheads forest, where he is attacked by a delirious Frank. Before Frank can stab Peter, Alen shoots an arrow through Frank face, wounding but not killing him.

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♤ While Peter is working in the Blood House, he sees an Asian Runner collapse on the lawn. This Runner, Minho, tells Alen and Peter that he found a dead Griever in the Maze. At dusk, the leaders, called Keepers, bring Frank from prison and push him into the Maze for attempting to murder Peter. Frank shrieks and howls in terror as the walls close on him.

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♤The next day, Minho and Alen go into the Maze to find the Griever, who, it turns out, was only pretending to be dead. By dinner, they haven't returned. At the West Door, Peter sees Minho half-carrying Alen, who has been stung. When Peter realizes that they won't make it into the Glade before the Doors close, he jumps into the Maze to help them.

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♤ Peter secures himself and Alen high onto the wall with ivy ropes. A Griever appears, pursues Peter, and is joined by three Grievers. Using an evasive maneuver, Minho and Peter trick the Grievers into going off a cliff within the Maze, where they are instantly swallowed up by darkness.

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♤ The next day, Alen is still alive on the wall, and he is taken down by other Gladers and given the Grief Serum. The Keepers are divided on what to do about Peter: he violated the rules by entering the Maze, but he also saved Alen 's life. Minho and Gally fight over Peter' fate, and it's finally decided that Peter will spend the next day in the Slammer (the Glade's jail), then join Minho as a Runner.

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♤ Word comes that Alen is awake and that he wants to talk to Peter alone. Alen tells Peter that during the Changing he learned some disturbing things about Peter and the girl, and that he knows about "the Flare," which means nothing to Peter. Just as Alen is explain further, he starts to strangle himself. After Alen is restrained with Ben's help, he says that an outside force was in control of his hands. Alen then gives Ben two instructions: "Be careful with the girl," and "protect the Maps."

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♤ When Peter visits the girl, she tells him telepathically that her name is Asuna. In her coma, she still has memories and says she and Peter caused this and were sent to end it. Peter retreats to sleep in the south corner of the Deadheads.

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♤ After his day in jail, Peter joins Minho. They run through Sections Eight and One of the Maze, then draw maps of those sections and add them to a trunk holding all the other daily maps. The other Runners do the same. That night, Asuna telepathically tells Peter she has "triggered the Ending."

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♤ The next morning, the boys wake up to find that the sun has disappeared and the Glade is bathed in grey light. More disturbing is the fact that the walls of the Maze are now stuck in the open position, meaning that there's nothing protecting the Glade from Grievers. Back in the Maze, Peter and Minho follow a Griever, and when they see it throw itself off the cliff, they realize there's a hole through which Grievers enter and exit the Maze. Asuna wakes up, and she and Peter, who have a connection they don't fully understand, speak to each other telepathically. Asuna is locked in the Slammer, and everyone else prepares for the Grievers to come through the open Maze doors into the Glade.

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♤ Barricaded in a Homestead room, Ben, Alen, Minho, and Peter hear the Grievers approach. Alen, very troubled, runs to the Map room. Gally bursts in and says the Grievers will kill one Glader each night until they're all dead. As a Griever breaks through the window, Gally throws himself at it. The Griever takes Gally through the West Door and the other Grievers follow.

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♤ Alen has burned the Maps, but it turns out that Minho had already moved the real Maps to protect them. Asuna realizes that the Maps are a code, and that by stacking each day's eight maps together, they can read letters, one letter each day. The Maps spell out six repeating words: FLOAT, CATCH, BLEED, DEATH, STIFF, PUSH. To gain more information, Peter intentionally gets stung by a Griever, goes through the Changing, and realizes in his visions that the only way to escape the Maze is to jump into the Griever Hole and type in the code words.

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♤ After a Gathering, the Keepers agree to the dangerous plan, and about half the Gladers assemble to escape. In the Maze, they're surrounded by Grievers, but they fight valiantly to make a path for Peter, Asuna, and Chuck to get to the Cliff. The three make it through the Hole and land in a greasy tunnel. Asuna types the words into a computer while Peter fights, and kills, a Griever. The last word, PUSH, won't enter, and Chuck realizes they need to push a button marked "Kill the Maze."