The Doors groaned open, and for the first time in his life, Gally didn't look at the sky. He looked straight into the stone jaws of the Maze. He didn't want to go. He hated the uncertainty of it, hated how the Keepers talked about the changing walls like they were living things. But as a Builder—and someone who prided himself on understanding how things were put together—he couldn't stand not knowing. If he was going to reinforce the Glade, he needed to understand what they were protecting themselves from.

Unlike the Greenbeans who stumbled or the Runners who leaped forward with practiced ease, Gally’s first step was heavy and calculated. He stopped right on the threshold, the physical seam where the smooth concrete of the Glade met the moss-slick, ancient stone of the Maze corridor. As he walked deeper, the scale of the walls hit him. In the Glade, the walls were a boundary, a horizon. Inside, they were a suffocating cage.

He only went three corridors deep before the silence became too loud. Then came the sound—a distant, metallic screech of a Griever waking up or a wall shifting miles away. It vibrated right through the soles of his boots. Gally didn't panic, but his jaw clenched so hard it ached. He turned back, his pace fast but deliberate. He wasn't running away; he was retreating to build a better defense. When he crossed back into the Glade, he refused to talk to anyone for the rest of the day. He just grabbed his hammer, went to the West Wall, and started driving nails into the wood with a ferocity that scared the other boys away.

Two years passed. Two years of Gally reinforcing the walls, enforcing the rules, and convincing himself that order was the only thing keeping them alive.