Thomas wakes in a dark elevator with no memories except his name and is pulled up into the Glade by teenage boys.

Alby tours Thomas through the Glade's four sections and explains the strict rule forbidding anyone but Runners from entering the Maze.

The Box unexpectedly delivers a comatose girl who briefly wakes to declare everything will change; a note says she is the last Glader ever.

Thomas slips through the closing Maze Door at night to help an exhausted Minho drag the Griever-stung Alby toward safety.

Thomas and Minho lure Grievers to the Cliff and trick them into plunging over the edge, surviving their night in the Maze.

Alby receives the Grief Serum and undergoes the agonizing Changing, during which fragments of his pre-Maze memories surface.

At a formal Gathering of Keepers, Minho shocks everyone by nominating Thomas to replace him as Keeper of the Runners.

Minho takes Thomas on his first official run through the Maze, explaining how Runners map the corridors each day.

Just before sleep, Thomas hears Teresa's voice inside his head announcing that she has just triggered the Ending.

The sky turns permanently gray as the sun vanishes and the Maze Doors fail to close at night for the first time.

Grievers invade the Glade for the first time; a returned Gally warns that one Glader will be taken each night until the end.

Thomas and Teresa work with Newt to complete decoding the six repeating code words hidden within the Maze's shifting wall patterns.

Thomas deliberately charges into a group of Grievers to get stung and undergo the Changing in hopes of recovering his memories.

The Gladers battle a horde of Grievers at the Cliff while Thomas and Teresa enter the Griever Hole and successfully shut down the Maze.

Mind-controlled Gally throws a knife at Thomas; Chuck jumps in front and is killed; rescuers shoot the Creators and lead the Gladers to safety.

Thomas arrives in the Glade with no memories and must quickly learn the rules of a strange enclosed world surrounded by a deadly Maze. After a girl named Teresa arrives and the Maze's routine begins to collapse, Thomas repeatedly breaks rules to protect his fellow Gladers and advance their understanding of the Maze. He and Teresa discover a code hidden within the Maze's shifting walls, and Thomas undergoes the painful Changing to recover the memories needed to use it. The Gladers mount a desperate assault on the Maze, fighting through Grievers to reach the Griever Hole where Teresa shuts the entire system down. Though the surviving Gladers escape the underground compound with the help of apparent rescuers, the cost is devastating — including the death of Thomas's closest friend Chuck. The pool covers every headline event from Thomas's first moments in the Glade to the bus ride away from the ruins of the experiment.

The core journey from Thomas's arrival in the Glade to the Gladers' escape and rescue.

Chuck explains to Thomas how Grievers work and that a Glader stung by one can be saved with the Grief Serum.

Thomas watches in disbelief as the massive stone Doors slide shut for his first night in the Glade.

Newt wakes Thomas before dawn and shows him a Griever crashing against a window hidden behind ivy in the Maze wall.

Ben, still crazed from the Changing, ambushes Thomas in the graveyard and bites into his shoulder before anyone can intervene.

Alby arrives in the Deadheads and shoots Ben in the cheek with a bow and arrow to stop the attack on Thomas.

The Keepers use a pole and collar to thrust a screaming, terrified Ben through the open Maze Door at dusk as punishment for attacking Thomas.

Thomas and Minho emerge from the Maze at dawn, becoming the first Gladers ever to survive a full night inside.

Thomas is locked in the Slammer for one day as the Gladers' formal punishment for breaking the Maze's number one rule.

Alby wakes from the Changing and privately tells Thomas he witnessed Thomas working alongside the Creators before the Maze began.

Thomas and Minho follow a fleeing Griever to the Cliff and discover that rocks thrown at one spot vanish, revealing a hidden portal.

Alby orders Teresa thrown into the Slammer after she admits to triggering the Ending, despite Thomas's protests on her behalf.

Gally tears open a barricaded window, and throws himself at a Griever so no other Glader will be taken that night.

Thomas rushes to the burned Map Room and discovers Alby beaten unconscious on the ground beside the smoldering ruins.

Minho reveals he secretly hid the real Maps the day before the fire, having replaced them with blank decoy paper.

The surviving Gladers slide down a long dark chute into an underground compound where pale Creators observe them from behind lit windows.

These events reveal the daily textures and dangers of life in the Glade that shaped Thomas's understanding of his strange new world. From his first glimpse of a Griever to Ben's brutal banishment and the discovery of the Griever Hole, each moment deepened the Gladers' knowledge of the Maze and its lethal rules. The arrival of Teresa and the burning of the Maps created new crises that threatened the Gladers' fragile order, while Gally's shocking sacrifice and Minho's foresight in hiding the real Maps proved pivotal to the group's survival. Together, these events trace the groundwork laid by many Gladers whose individual actions made the eventual escape attempt possible. The pool ends as the surviving Gladers reach the underground compound and come face to face with the Creators for the first time.

The hidden details and supporting moments that shaped life in the Glade and made the escape possible.

Gally blocks Thomas on the Homestead stairway and threatens him, claiming to have already seen Thomas's face during his own Changing.

Thomas tells Chuck he is determined to become a Runner, feeling a powerful and inexplicable pull toward the Maze.

Chuck reveals that a previous escape attempt through the Box shaft ended with a boy being sliced in half by an unseen force.

Gally stands at the Gathering and accuses Thomas of being a spy planted by the Creators to win the Gladers' trust.

Alby violently begins choking himself when he tries to speak about what he witnessed during the Changing, as if controlled by an outside force.

Thomas hears Teresa's voice telepathically for the first time while she lies in a coma, telling him they caused the Gladers' suffering together.

Chuck visits Thomas in the Slammer and tearfully admits he cries every night, desperately longing to find his parents and go home.

After waking from her coma, Teresa shows Thomas the words 'WICKED is good' written on her arm from before her memories fully faded.

Thomas layers wax-paper tracings of the Runners' section Maps on top of each other and spots the first hidden letter forming in the overlapping corridors.

Thomas reveals to the assembled Keepers that he and Teresa helped the Creators design and encode the Maze, albeit against their will.

Alby confesses to the group that he burned all the Maps himself and declares the world outside is too horrible to return to.

Thomas volunteers himself to be sacrificed to the Grievers at the start of the escape attempt so the other Gladers can fight through.

Alby breaks from the charging Gladers near the Cliff and flings himself onto a Griever, sacrificing himself so the others can continue.

Teresa pushes a red button labeled KILL THE MAZE inside the Griever Hole, and all Grievers fall instantly silent.

A secret memo from Chancellor Ava Paige reveals Chuck's murder and the Gladers' rescue were planned as the experiment's finale, with Stage 2 now beginning.

From the moment Gally recognized Thomas as someone he had seen during the Changing, Thomas's hidden past became a source of danger and mystery in the Glade. His growing pull toward the Maze, combined with disturbing revelations from Alby's Changing and Teresa's first telepathic contact, gradually exposed the truth of his identity and his role in the experiment. Each revelation — from Teresa's cryptic inscription to the hidden letters in the stacked Maps — moved Thomas closer to understanding both how to escape and what kind of person he had been before his memories were erased. The Gladers' assault on the Maze brought the darkest truth into the open: that Thomas and Teresa had helped build the very prison trapping their friends. The pool ends with the epilogue's chilling reveal that the entire escape, including Chuck's death, was the final engineered test, and Stage 2 is already beginning.

The key discoveries and decisions that transformed Thomas from confused newcomer to the leader of the escape.