The Maze Bummer: A Parody of The Maze Runner
The Maze Bummer: Chapter 24

Two days later, the Sausage Festers all stood in front of Maze Yogurt Co., staring out at the Cliff.

Getting there hadn’t been easy. A lot of Heavers had been destroyed, and a few Sausage Festers who hadn’t fully grasped Thomas’s theories of female psychology had hooked up with Heavers. But almost everyone had made it.

Now, finally, it was time to jump off the Cliff, and hopefully leave the Sausage Fest for good.

“Who wants to go first?” said Thomas cheerfully. He looked around, but no one volunteered.

“I think you should go first,” said Alby.

“Agreed,” said Newt. “You brought us here, so you should go first in case anything goes wrong.”

“Fine,” said Thomas, trying to act casual. “I’m happy to go first. No biggie.”

Thomas walked to the edge of the Cliff, looked out at the starry sky beyond, and got ready to jump. It wasn’t going to be easy. While he knew the star-filled sky had to be an illusion, it certainly didn’t look like it.

Thomas felt a hand on his shoulder. “Wait, I’ll go with you.” It was Teresa.

“That’s nice of you to offer,” said Thomas, “but I really should go first. It’s my fault we’re here.”

“It’s just as much my fault,” said Teresa. “If I hadn’t told you about The Study, none of this would’ve ever happened.”

“Less arguing and more jumping!” said Alby. “Let’s get the klunk out of here already!”

Thomas nodded to Teresa, and took her hand. “On three. One…two…THREE!”

Thomas and Teresa leapt into the darkness, and everything went black. Thomas felt like he was falling, and a couple seconds later he and Teresa landed with a thump on something metallic, and they started sliding downward as if they were on a playground slide.

“Whooooo! It worked!” cried Thomas jubilantly. Behind him, he began to hear the other Sausage Festers landing on the slide.

“Goodbye Thomas,” said Teresa. “Maybe I’ll see you in a few months. Best of luck.”

“Huh?” said Thomas. “What do you mean, ‘goodbye?’”

Teresa suddenly sped away from Thomas, sliding off on a branching slide that Thomas hadn’t seen coming. She waved at Thomas as she got farther away and finally disappeared into the darkness.

Thomas tried to think about what this all meant, but before he had time to figure anything out, he shot off the slide and out into daylight. Thomas fell through the air, landed hard on a patch of dirt, and then rolled to a stop. One-by-one, all the Sausage Festers except for Teresa landed behind him.

Thomas got up and glanced around. It looked like he was on some sort of giant farm. The ground was a grid divided up into square patches of different colors, with some of the squares of the grid also having low square buildings on them.

“We’re free!” said Minho.

“Thank klunkin’ goodness,” said Alby.

“But where are we?” said Chuck.

“Good question,” said Thomas. “Let’s see if anybody’s in the buildings.”

Thomas and Chuck walked over to the closest building, but as they got closer they realized it wasn’t a building at all. Rather, it was a square piece of wood, a few feet high and about 10 yards long.

“What is this thing?” said Chuck, knocking on the wood piece. Thomas shrugged, totally confused. He decided they should get up on the piece of wood to try and get a better view of the surrounding area. But when Thomas climbed up onto the wood piece, he saw that it had the letter “B” painted on top, with a small “2” painted in the lower right corner.

“B2?” said Thomas. “Why would a piece of wood say that?”

“Thomas, look!” said Chuck. Chuck pointed at some of the other wood pieces nearby, and Thomas saw that all of them also had a large letter and a smaller number painted on the top.

“Hey Tommy, whaddya make of this thing?” yelled Newt. Thomas looked over and saw Newt examining a long wooden stand on which seven of the wood pieces stood resting at an angle.

Suddenly, shouts went up from the other Sausage Festers, who all started pointing at the sky. When Thomas looked up, he saw that the sky now had a message written on it:

YOUR TURN

WIN OR DIE

Our turn? thought Thomas. Our turn for what?

Then Thomas had a sudden flash, and it filled him with terror.

Thomas scrambled down from the wood piece and tried to lift it, but it was too heavy. “Everyone, come help me move this!” shouted Thomas, frantically. The other Sausage Festers ran over, and together they slowly lifted the piece of wood and dragged it aside.

Thomas looked at the ground underneath where the piece of wood had been, and his heart sank.

The ground had the words “DOUBLE WORD SCORE” written on it.

“Nooooooooooooo!” said Thomas, and he collapsed to the ground.